Crows at the Perch
by PhaerynTao
Summary: Each pair of onyx button eyes reflects a snippet of reality. Or better yet, surreality. Flash fiction series
1. Author's Note

Like the summary states, these are my pointed but most times nonsensical musings of Death Note_._ Drabbles, if you will.

I'm going to be honest, when I was first exposed to Death Note, I didn't like it one bit. I love morbid things, but for some reason it just rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe I was tasteless, maybe I was apathetic. Maybe I sensed that it was going to become just another over-sensationalized topic in popular culture, which…well, did happen, but I'm not the type to not like something just because it's trendy; I like and dislike things on my own principles, not others.

Back on the subject of Death Note, there are still things I don't like about it. But I won't bore anyone with that irrelevant crap. Obviously the devout fans of it aren't going to be thrilled about a bunch of hate speech. There are, however, many things that I _do _like about Death Note. And I will be playing with, commenting on, manipulating, and drawing out those moments in this. They're going to be simple, maze-like, innocent, tainted, funny, serious, beautiful, ugly...the list goes on. Oh and let's not leave out the ratings; not all of this stuff is going to be sunshine and ponies, but not all of it is going to be head splitting angst either. I'll try and maintain a healthy balance.

Keep in mind, my friends, that I write what I want.

Oh...and...I don't own Death Note. There, you can't sue me.

Anyways, enough of this. Let us begin. :)


	2. Black Moths

**Black Moths**

**-:-**

Watchful eyes.

Huge, bleak, watchful eyes. They questioned, they asked, they never danced or flaunted joy.

However, they did glitter whenever they smelled an answer close by.

Or perhaps something that was undoubtedly pleasing to the taste buds. His tongue must have been forever raw from having so many grossly saccharine treats being placed above and underneath it.

Black as the feathers of the birds sitting on the lamp posts, the roof tops, and the arms of those who looked upon death with the indifference that they were cursed with but not granted, Ryuuzaki's eyes subtly quivered while holding two elements. One often practiced by a face of assumed apathy, the other one of daft consequences if anyone knew the man had displayed it.

A treasure-less victory at the discovery of his abiding belief of the young man holding him as he perished being the legendary Kira.

And betrayal.

I'm sure not even the cosmos knows why _that _little emotion wormed its way into his drained skin.

Light Yagami played a fine role. He should be hearing from a talent agency any day now. But once a charlatan, always a charlatan. And to all that looked on, each person observed different nuances of the way that the teenager held the dying older man in his arms. An unfooled genius until his dying breath, Ryuzaki saw the flickering blood red taint in the boy's eyes, inwardly laughing at the permanent triumph that would now hover over both of their souls for the rest of eternity.

L might have not been one to parade around his arrogance. But it was such a loss. A loss that had a poisonous depth, and it spread like a hot deceiving wildfire.

Feeling his murderer, no, _the _murderer hold him using the strength of his biceps made him want to retch, but he was hollow now. His heart struggled to keep precious sugary blood pumping through his body, but the last part of his brain that hadn't already shut down from loss of oxygen was telling it not to bother.

A brain, a mastermind, and an unbeatable diffident emperor of the puzzles the world had to offer.

Defeated from lack of proof, or other more personal motives?

Once again, the cosmos, lord of all answers, scratches its head once again, wondering why fate was playing with its tinker toys again.

L's back when straight and rigid, finding stiff relief from the thousands of hours he had pored over various computer screens, the last thing he saw was the truth of Light Yagami's soul.

The sweet judicial darkness that had erupted within Light some time ago made him inwardly rejoice for the death of the only person who stood in his way of the ultimate utopia.

But somewhere, swimming in the onyx pool of tar that was his stomach, something fluttered manically. Desperately, trying to escape. Something not acknowledged.

A thousand tiny moths, drowning in an ocean of spoiled ink.


	3. China Doll

**China Doll**

**-:-**

Light was almost shocked when he didn't hear more childish outcries excreted from her mouth. He sighed, and put his index finger and thumb on the smooth half circle of the bridge of his nose.

"Misa, don't act like this."

His apt mind quipped at ultra super speed '_well how do you want her to act?_' Everything she did aggravated him. Everything_. _Whether more word vomit was spilling from in between her lips or she was silent as a tomb, every action, every gesture, every stinking, conniving, grating thing she did was just under the extent of making him want to put a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.

Okay, maybe that's a bit much, but it's hard to think clearly when all he could think about is how unsatisfied he was with this girl who claimed to be his soul mate.

I can't do this anymore, he told her. I can't go on trying to pretend that I'm enjoying all of these trivial activities when there's a cold blooded killer on the loose, he told her. Why can't you just grow the hell up and understand that my true wish to be here, without your meddling, he told her.

She just stood there, reflective cobalt blue eyes shimmering with the glass surface of tears. Maybe she _did _possess the ability to shut the hell up.

And perhaps he had gone too far this time.

Nonetheless, she was starved for many things, including love. And was just something that he could not give her. In fact, even if he could, the grotesque kraken inside of him wouldn't give it to her anyways. It held his love inside of him with its sucking tentacles, reserving it for the future utopia. Not this airhead model.

She was Kira without the elegance, without the brilliance. She was a mockery of everything Kira stood for, and yet she idolized him like so many others idolized her in turn, for being beautiful and perfect and cute and fashionable.

She was something you could touch, something you could hold. So…materialistic.

What the real Kira stood for was something that you couldn't hold in the palm of your hand. It existed in the recesses of your mind, floundering around until the right prodigy came along to activate it. You can't see it or touch it. It just echoes in the land of forever, beckoning with its siren call.

That's what Kira loved. Not this girl. Not this clumsy, obnoxious girl.

But something in her gaze made him want to freeze everything he was doing. Like she had asked him to do just seconds before. Normally she would start crying. Not real crying, mind you. Those fake, phony, gasping tears would come, and then to keep up appearances, he would present a plastic apology and everything would be alright again. Her glossed lips would stretch in a wide smile, and then she would skip off, in a singsong voice saying how excited she was for the 'next time' that Light would take her on a date.

Today…

Her face, still like stone, said one thing. _Don't bother. _

And then she turned to leave.

"Misa-"

She still hadn't spoken since he practically grilled her on a skillet and then left her drying out under the heat lamps until she was to be served. He called out her name, in futility, but once she looked back at him once more, he refrained from saying anything more.

It was almost like…a challenge. A dare. A 'just see what happens when you belittle me like that one more time' expression.

Light found himself unafraid, intrigued even, that she had the ability to so wordlessly fight back against him, especially when she had done nothing of the sort before.

But she still pissed him off.

That being said, Light walked back to the long desk of computers and flopped back down into his respective chair next to L's. The dark haired man gave him a slow and unreadable side glance, once again showing off the two vacuums that were his eyes.

"I don't know what possesses her to act this way. It's getting pretty damn ridiculous."

They were wasted words. The both of them knew why Misa acted the way she did. But perhaps in a microscopic blip of chance, one of them knew that there was more under the surface beyond her China doll exterior. Light wasn't worried that she would leave, not a single bit. But her brief display of self assured confidence still had him uneasy. About what, he wasn't sure. He decided that he was going to keep it vague, to not let himself sink into too much detail when it came to Misa. Besides, Kira would never take the time to immerse themselves with a seemingly trivial matter such as that.

Misa would never betray him. No matter how mad he made her, and vice versa.

It was useless to keep on complaining how much he disliked her in the many senses he shouldn't. She wasn't disposable. Although she sat on the shelf a lot, with her by his side he could always whip her out for something useful to his plans.

He half expected Ryuuzaki to acknowledge his expressive displeasure with the girl, but the man said nothing, did nothing. Just sat there like a gargoyle that was carved hundreds of years ago, not moving an inch until he reached for his cup of lukewarm sugar with a side of coffee.

In the most insignificant of reactions, however, L gripped the fragile cup with two fingers, but not in a vain caress. He took a trembling sip, the uncharacteristically shaky slurps not catching the teenager's attention.

And then, with the strength of his index and thumb, he broke the tiny handle into pieces and the cup was left to fall against the cold hard floor. It shattered, sending pieces of porcelain and watery brown liquid everywhere.

Light jumped and his arms went to cling to the rests on the side of his chair. Such ungainliness. Ryuuzaki treated tea cups like they were the queen of England's golden toilet seat. And he had just completely shattered one of them. All Light could do was stare at the spilled coffee and the mountain of wet sugar that fell with it.

"Oh…" Ryuuzaki sighed, his monotonous voice once again mocking a little thing called emotion. "What a waste."

The man loved creating his own irony. Reaching down, he dipped a finger into the small mound of sopping sweetness and brought it to his tongue.

"Ryuuzaki, did you just break that cup?" Light asked, eyes widening just a fraction. While wearing a constant masquerade, one gets used to never using full fledged sentiment. A never-ending control, it was.

L pursed his lips together and then twitched them to the side. "Brilliant deduction. You have much to be proud of."

Light inwardly sneered at the sarcasm. But he was still far too confused. Ryuuzaki was obviously bothered by something, but what?

After a few seconds though, inside he laughed at himself; getting all worked up about a broken tea cup, please.

"Well, where's a rag so I can clean this mess up?" Light asked.

"Why don't you call Misa? I'm sure she'll jump at the chance at cleaning it up."

"...Huh?" Yeah, really smart reply.

"Just don't tell her it's really mine."

The cryptic son of a bitch.

Well, not _that _cryptic. Light knew what he was doing. Of course, he never thought Ryuuzaki was the type to guilt trip someone, especially when, really, in this case it had absolutely no personal gain on his side.

"Look, its seeping into the tile cracks, let me just-"

"Watari can do it." Ryuuzaki said shortly.

"Yeah…okay."

He broke the cup. He gripped the oval handle so hard with his two fingers that it broke in two. Light hardly saw the man overreact to anything. Whatever kind of strength, physical or mental, Ryuuzaki always applied the right amount. No more, no less.

"Is something wrong, Ryuuzaki?" Light asked.

"Elaborate." Ryuuzaki said. "Define 'something wrong'."Funny how much of an arrogant drawl he could muster without even trying.

"Do I honestly need to answer that? I asked you first." Light countered.

In a flash, L's fingers flew across the keyboard in front of him and closed out the files he was inspecting. Breaking out of his bird-like sitting posture, he rose from the chair and made his way to the exit.

"Are you even going to answer my question?" Light called after him, now thoroughly irritated. So both his girlfriend _and _his partner were acting like lunatics. Absolutely splendid.

L stopped his awkward shuffling, but didn't turn around. "No, but…if you play with your doll for too long without being thankful that it was bought for you, she'll fall apart."

And he left.

Light's eye twitched.

Puzzling to anyone else, but L's mind wasn't the only sharp one around there. Kira didn't like being told what to do, even if it was indirectly.


	4. Solace

**Solace**

**-:-**

The leather bindings ran across her stomach, her chest, and in between her crotch. Misa Amane could practically feel the thing lewdly separating the outer parts of her reproductive organs, even through the layer of cloth that had been lackadaisically wrapped around her body.

Something heinous had happened. One moment she was pulled from a crowd of adoring fans, which was normal enough, but then in an instant she was cuffed and blindfolded.

And she was _still _blindfolded.

Her blue eyes sat unused and useless as she felt like she was standing upright with the help of some kind of imprisoning contraption, besides creating more tears that would heat and becoming itchy from the shield on her eyes.

Kidnapping, that was the only word she could use for this. A repugnant sick person who wanted to use her for their sick pleasures, be it torture or acts of a sexual nature. Or maybe they just wanted her to stand there, bound by straps of terse purpose, and watch her cry and start to wilt like a dying flower.

The synthetic high pitched voice echoed through the room each time it spoke, filling her ears with something that didn't even come close to the level of a simple case of fear. It was curt, businesslike, and unforgiving but at the same time it had a very, very private glee in seeing her like this.

How _did _she look?

She was blind as a bat. The cloth seemed like nothing more than a cheap condolence. She could have been strewn out and chained across a table stark naked, with that voice examining every single nook and cranny of her smooth body, and she wouldn't know it. The thought frightened her.

It asked about Kira. Kira this, Kira that. Do you know Kira? Are you the second Kira? Why all the games?

Games?

It wants to talk to _her _about games?

The only game she was playing was theirs, and she was losing badly.

No matter how many times the voice tried to convince her that this was just an intense interrogation, assumptions of rape and other such torture devices kept spilling out of her mouth each time it spoke to her. Like a waterfall of verbal diarrhea; proof of her disbelief.

Once in a while, while she dried out under lamps that fraily mimicked natural light, she stood outside of her box. Outside of her grueling, sweating, lethargic box.

If only she knew Kira. If only she knew him, and if only she could thank him for giving her some solace concerning the death of her parents. His sense of justice may have been skewed to everyone else, but she adored Kira. If she _did _know Kira, she would throw her arms around him in unmasked gratitude. Her insides would sing.

One day, the voice spoke to her again. Although her layers were getting worn down each day from having to go through the same damn questions and sleeping with her neck slumped over or to the side, her ears picked up interference in the background. Perhaps the person's claim of simply conducting an investigation was correct.

Or maybe the voice and all of their friends were coming and having a look at the bound celebrity. The word _bukkake _revoltingly came to mind.

"I'm frustrated, Misa Amane."

That was…different. The sentence not only wasn't a question, but a statement of personal feeling. Another sign that this was indeed a human being she was dealing with. For some reason, this gave her an odd sense of comfort.

"W-why?" She asked shakily. Her once singsong voice scraped past her throat.

"When you were first brought here, you were purely in denial. I expected that. However…"

The voice paused, and then came back, but this time it sounded like it was chewing on something.

"Shortly after, you then began claiming that you knew nothing. Before, you knew nothing, but all of a sudden, it was as if you _truly _knew nothing."

"But I _never _knew a thing, that's what I've been trying to _tell _you!" Misa cried desperately. A fresh coat of tears were now pasting themselves onto her cheek, sandwiched by the guard over her eyes.

"Ahhh…but that is never the case." It simply said.

It was getting stranger. The voice was normally like it was straight out of a machine. The Macintosh program where you type something onto the notepad and it pronounces it through the speakers, if you will. Now it had human expression. It _did _sound frustrated. But it didn't frighten her as much as it once did now that it was showing some form of emotion.

"Whats…going on up there? You're talking different." Misa whispered, so low she was sure that the voice wouldn't hear at all.

"It is late, Misa."

If she could have, she would've blinked.

"And I have grown tired of the sparseness, however surprising that may be."

"Who-who are you?" Misa asked. The question had been on her tongue so often. It puzzled her now to know that she had never asked it before.

The voice didn't respond right away.

"Just a servant in the house of justice."

In a brief show of censure, Misa scoffed. "Ch, what would _you _know about justice when you won't listen to the words of the innocent?"

"You believe you are innocent?"

"I _know _I'm innocent!"

"Then that will be evident soon enough."

A shuddery breath escaped from her mouth. "But _how _soon…"

"I don't know."

"Just kill me…"

"Don't start that again. I believe it's already been made clear that your life will not be taken during this interrogation."

"But I just can't take it anymore." She whispered.

Again, the voice paused. "You're a strong and aesthetically pleasing young woman, Misa Amane. I have no doubt that you have the strength to get through anything, let alone this."

Misa looked up, seeing nothing, but had anyone been able to see the entirety of her face, a confused look was gracing her features.

"Now, goodnight."

A click, and then silence. Misa fought the urge to shriek in exasperation, but instead let her head loll onto her shoulder.

The voice _did _say it was getting late…

-:-

"Why was this particular questioning so…unprofessional, Ryuuzaki?" Soichiro Yagami asked slowly.

The dark haired man in the rotatable chair sat still.

"I suppose a more personable approach was in order."

Sounding certain was a forte of his. But he lied on purpose.

L turned off the monitor that showed him Misa Amane, who had looked like a subject of BDSM for about a week already. But though his informing Misa of the time of day it was candid, it was still weirdly undistinguished. Funny. Sometimes, he found himself gazing with a grossly empty head at the bound girl. While other times, like tonight, he shut the monitor off with a sincere thanks that he would not have to look at her until the next session of questioning.


	5. Viagra

**Viagra**

**-:-**

The little blue pill felt light in his hand, but it had a heavy message to it, and an even heavier duty. He stared at the tiny azure mold with a sour face at what he had said he would do tonight.

_Promised _to do tonight. What came over him, he wondered. Misa had never gotten under his skin before, why did he decide to cave in now?

Back in the hotel room which he shared with the detective he was handcuffed to, he sat on the smooth bedspread and suddenly stopped wondering if there were any ways out of this.

Because maybe, this wasn't going to be so bad after all.

Soon his virginity would be gone, though the intangible token meant less to him than the life of a true criminal. Lost to a woman who would probably cling to him like a lover, while he clung to her desperately like the fuck doll he thought she would be. He wasn't afraid of getting rough. Hell, maybe she would catch the hint that he didn't feel anything romantic for her at all through a nice pelvis-breaking rut.

Nothing about it was appealing. He wasn't even looking forward to the climax which would undoubtedly arrive quick and sudden.

"Viagra."

Light was startled, but he didn't show it. He turned his head to see Ryuuzaki crouching on the bed, staring over his shoulder at the pill in his palm.

Light sighed. "Yes, it is."

Ryuuzaki wedged the flat side of his thumbnail in between two teeth. "Since when does a teenager of your virility need Viagra?"

"I promised Misa the night of her life, tonight."

"Really." Ryuuzaki said, sounding atypically impressed. "That's quite fortunate. However, it still doesn't answer my question."

"Well Ryuuzaki, since I don't have the emotional stamina to stand Misa, then at least I can gain it in the physical area."

The gray skinned man was quiet for a moment, before…

"How is it that what you've just said was both erotic and despicable at the same time?"


	6. Grief

**Grief**

**-:-**

_You have never known beauty, yet you embody the word. Your shell houses something that is anything but empty, but your conscious simply cannot reach such a buried essence. Skin as white as a glass lake in winter, you're warm to the touch, and freezing to the eye._

Walking through a dream was the same as walking on a beach. The ground sucked at your feet and brought down your legs. You had to work twice as hard to keep on going, wherever your destination was. That was something that never seemed to change, no matter how hard Near forced his consciousness to exist where it shouldn't. When he first came to Wammy's, sleep was a pitch black trail of nothing, and he would walk, walk, and walk until the sun's rays decided to coax him away from the unreal realm. Dreams were a funny thing, however. Initially they frightened him when they finally started making their stay within the alcoves of his mind again, but like so many other attributes he shared with his antecedent L Lawliet, he did not like to be bested. What he found so strange about it was the fact that dreams were, in a way, his own brain trying to imprison him.

The notion was chilling. Especially to someone who always believed to have some sort of definite grasp on his psyche.

Coincidentally, the ground was not cement. It wasn't asphalt or tile, or…any other kind of surface. The feeling was that he was walking on sand, and in actuality, he _was _walking on sand. Near walked through a desert he unsurprisingly had no recollection of having traveled to. Such an environment would scorch in real life. The sun would hurt his moon-kissed skin and fry his colorless hair. The sand would burn the soft soles of his feet and soil his sheer white clothing. The air would dry out his lungs and make him hack to vainly get some moisture back into his body.

But none of that happened. On the contrary, he felt quite good. The sun warmed his back through his baggy shirt and the bits of sand that got caught on the rims of his eyelids didn't itch or hurt at all. It was pleasant, this endless desert. The actual sensation and how it should have felt didn't fit, but his lucidity reminded him that dreams often don't make sense.

It was odd to know how to act though, when you were knowingly inside the very core of your mind. So he didn't. He just walked, watched, and waited. And so far, it was a barren wasteland. Was this what his inner fragments manifested into? A place of aridity?

He wondered if he should have been expectant or disappointed. He never really turned his thoughts inward enough to explore the more personal parts of his individuality; all internal disputes applied to cases and cerebral affairs.

And ahead of him was a dune of mass proportions. It seemed epic and hard to tackle, but already Near's legs defied any command that he might've given them at that moment and automatically began walking towards it with a determination that he simply could not understand or even begin to describe. As weak as he was in reality from a lack of true physical activity, he felt no strain on his body as he walked barefoot in the parched sand towards that dune. It held something on the top, and it was waiting for him.

Illogical. Improbable. He shouldn't go if there wasn't a palpable reason.

Walk, walk walk.

The foot of the dune was warm with the sun. Near stood with his feet buried in the grainy warmth for an unknown amount of time. The sand caressed his soft skin; didn't scratch it, just rubbed away all of the dead skin in unseen flakes. For once, he reached up and swept his bangs out of his face. Looking upwards to the top, he still couldn't see anything; not even a hint of what was drawing him towards the summit.

It was too steep a climb to walk upright, so he got down on all fours instead. A labored but by no means exhausted breath past in and out of a pair of pink cracked lips. He never kept his bottomless eyes away from the top, his destination, not even when painless yet startling granules of sand invaded his sight. His long delicate fingers gripped the sand underneath him, willing his body to tuck away the logic just this once, if only for a little bit so he could figure out whose unheard siren's voice of a call it was that charmed him into following its enigmatic serenade without question.

The sand was a lot more noticeable now. It was everywhere: in his clothes, hair, eyes, and even in the tiniest pores of his skin. But they spurred him onward. The summit, _must _reach the summit.

The zenith was almost flat. A little _too _flat for something that seemed so tall on the way up. And by the edge of the other side, Near's pupils contracted in shock as he found himself staring at the hunched back of someone he still didn't quite know how to deal with, within a dream or not.

A loose gray shirt, baggy jeans shredded at the knees, skin ashen like his own, and feral unruly black hair.

Even though he emitted many grunts and sighs as he climbed his way up the dune, his predecessor didn't seem to take any notice to his arrival. Too hesitant to call out to him, Near stood up, and slowly walked to his side. He suddenly understood why the man didn't turn towards him. On the other side of the dune, the one that Near didn't come from, there was an oasis dotted with sparkling lakes and palm trees. Beautiful, yes. But instead of fixating his attention on the haven ahead of him, he looked downward at the man, still sitting beside him.

"L." He said, brushing his knuckles against the detective's shoulder. Only then did he break his gaze away from the haven to look up at the albino young man.

"I was wondering when you'd come." L said.

Near raised an eyebrow. He was anticipated? That didn't make sense. But dreams…funny little exhibitions they were. Not knowing what to say to that, he sat down next to L, looking up at him in vague almost nonexistent uncertainty, willing the man with his eyes to say something more to him. Anything, to give him a clue about why suddenly his dreams were delving into something a little more than he could control.

L said nothing. So Near took the initiative again and spoke.

"Why are you up on this dune? It's very dry." Wonderful, now everything _he _said made no sense either. But who was he to argue with his subconscious, he was quickly learning. "There are lakes down there. Go take a drink."

The features of L's face were etched to make an expression of sorrowful contemplativeness; strange for someone who often seemed to lack any sort of regret.

"Why are you sitting up here all by yourself?" Near asked, tugging L's shirt gently.

"I've always been up here. There's been no reason to move."

"But you're burning out here." Near said, hating how childish he sounded asking so many questions but for some reason he couldn't stop himself. "You're clothes are dirty and your face is peeling. And your voice is raspy."

Near gripped the piece of L's shirt tighter, this time fisting it. "Please, go drink."

L turned to look at the boy, facing him with similar eyes, but Dream L's eyes were far more unfathomable than Near had remembered. He thought he might drown in those black lakes if he stared at them too long. If there was one person who the boy was diffident to looking in the eye for long amounts of time, it was L Lawliet. Darker, older, smarter, wiser. So much to live up to, yet he was taught to be like none other most of his life.

What Near felt for the man was deeper than admiration, deeper than competitiveness. It went so deep that whenever Near tried to swim to the bottom, he would get scared and claw back up to the surface, afraid that he would sink and die if he didn't get air soon. It was hard to have this many emotional sensations when he did such a masterful job at tucking them away tight in a little compact corner of his brain. But for an unknown reason, it was a little easier to deal with as he sat next to his mentor.

They were both quite disabled when it came to showing what was truly being harbored within their minds. It was dangerous to be too expressive, after all. But just this once, Near actually felt safe being in close proximity with him. Like he could just break that padlock that held back everything that mutely stewed and bubbled in his neglected emotional encasing.

"How come you won't drink?" Near asked, his voice soft yet poignant.

"Everyone seems to encourage me to drink." L said, with just a hint of quiet frustration. "Yet they take nothing for themselves."

The L he knew didn't talk in cryptic idioms very much. But even as he spoke in sentences that weren't completely understood by the small boy, it still felt as if he was forthright as ever.

"What about you, Near? Why don't _you _drink?"

"Well I just got here. I'm not thirsty yet."

"But you've been thirsty for a long time."

Near once again raised an eyebrow, finding the courage to look up at L's face without turning away. L's equally dry lips curved into a sad smile.

"What do you mean?" Near asked, abandoning any cryptic or nonsensical speech that he may have accidentally adopted during his time there. He was tired of staying open to all of this symbolic junk. He wanted answers from his subliminal vault. _Now_.

L put one of his slender hands on the boy's shoulder farthest from him and pulled him close. He then pointed to one of the lakes far off the distance. Many other lakes were drying up as they baked in the sun, but this one sparkled and glittered. It was a deep bottomless blue, and it was eroding the sides, trying to overflow.

"See that one way over there?"

Near nodded a little bit. He liked being held like that. He knew that he shouldn't; he was getting older and he accepted the fact that no one was ever going to hold him like that again. Yet there was a taste on his tongue, and the only way he could describe it was with the word 'father'.

But he didn't dare utter that within the echoing walls of his mind, let alone out loud. For now he just enjoyed the closeness.

"Those, Near, are your tears."

L lowered his pointed finger, and looked back down at the boy who looked right back.

"So?" Near said.

"So you can see it's spilling over."

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Whatever you wish. You have to empty it somehow, though."

The scene rippled, like something from another dimension was trying to rip through it. Both L and Near sighed, knowing that something was pulling at their current reality. But Near stayed with his nose buried in his side, savoring the feeling of L's hand on his shoulder, waiting for the inevitable force that would will him away from this land of ambiguity and confusion; of security and mournful refuge.

-:-

With sweat on his forehead and his white locks sticking to his damp cheeks, Near woke up in his bed, eyes as dark as his room and wide as dinner plates. It was like he hadn't slept at all; his mind was energized beyond belief but his body felt like it had walked on a bridge over the Atlantic and back. His thin delicate legs were twisted with his sheets, and a bit of the white comforter was tightly gripped in his fist.

Near sat up slowly and reached up to touch his face. There was wetness there, and it wasn't sweat. His fingertips gingerly searched his cheeks for the source, and found it pooled up in the corners of his eyes. Taking a drop of the moisture on the tip of his index, he slowly brought it to his tongue and tasted it.

Salt.

They were tears. He had cried in his sleep.

Never had he cried before.

And another wave of them came on as he remembered his mentor, alive and warm in his dreams, but cold and stricken with rigor mortis in the real world. The great L, brought down by a petty criminal calling himself the very Lord of the world. His stomach lurched with disgust.

But his lips turned upwards, actually showing teeth; not like those other smiles he made when he was twisted with morbid serendipity. He fell back against the pillows, letting the unstoppable tears slide into his hairline.

He secretly, guiltily mourned for L. But his death finally allowed him to empty his lake.


	7. Escape

**Escape**

**-:-**

As hair after hair was plucked out by the follicle, Ryuuzaki was wondering several things.

Number one: why in the world did he ever agree to this.

Number two: why did he have to be born with such thick strands.

And number three: why couldn't he see into the future so he could have washed his hair and make at least a _little _more manageable.

Hmm…that last one was pretty irrational.

"Yikes, Ryuuzaki's hair is like wire!" Misa exclaimed, wiping her forehead free of a thin film of sweat.

Supposedly he disgusted her. Nearly everything he did brought on her reaction of never wanting to touch him with a ten foot pole.

The only thing he could do was stare at the computer screen containing the unopened computer files regarding the Kira case, which were yet to be looked over and analyzed. Every time he reached out to touch the computer mouse and start working, it was automatically pulled back to his chest each instant Misa Amane found another tight knot in his tangled tresses. Light Yagami sat in another chair identical to his, running his fingers through his own hair with ease, and trying to hide an amused smile as his girlfriend suddenly made it her mission to be able to run a comb through the detective's hair without resistance.

So…inane. But he said nothing.

"_Nng…!_"

Well, except for his muffled sounds as the process of him going bald continued.

"Misa Amane, do you think – _ah! – _that we could refrain from this activity before – _tchh! – _I lose my hair entirely?"

"I dunno, Ryuuzaki, personally I think she's doing you a favor." Light jested.

Damn that laughter in his voice.

There was nothing funny about this. Why on Earth did he think there was? Misa's good intentions were so often sorely misplaced, so often that Ryuuzaki would find himself feeling a vague amount of pity for the poor girl whose efforts were swallowed up by everyone else's attempt to push her back down to being the brainless dreamer who couldn't hold her own in anything but a modeling contest.

More often than not, he would stray from his case work and think about his new companions. How they always seemed to fight, how they always appeared to make up, how they just seemed to be…keeping up the act. Or at least one of them was. Unbeknownst to them, Ryuuzaki observed their interactions. It was scarily heartfelt each time Misa would try to bear her soul to the one she loved, and in turn spooky when Light would continually reject her with amazing ease.

The most endowed killers in the world did everything with ease.

Light Yagami had ease like no other.

Five percent was what he said to the team. The probability he held for Light being Kira was something that went deeper than numbers, deeper than percentages.

He _knew. _

But with no concrete evidence…

Such a profound implication doesn't stand its ground. Yet.

But all in due time, all in due-

"_Yah!_"

…time.

"I think…I think I'm done." Misa whispered, comically amazed that she might have completed her task after all.

Ryuuzaki's face held a brief show of relief. "Thank you, Misa. That was very…adequate." He almost wondered what his mop looked like now that it didn't feel like it had its trademark tangles and mats anymore.

He reached over to his keyboard, only to jump slightly when he felt her hands on his head _again. _Ryuuzaki pulled his head away from her touch. "What _else _must you do to further damage the surface of my cranium?"

Light stifled a laugh. Ryuuzaki didn't sound pissed. He sounded afraid.

Misa blinked. "I was going to massage your head for you. I mean, with all the pulling and yanking I did probably did a number on your scalp."

Ryuuzaki said nothing, but didn't draw back again when she buried her long black polished fingers into his hair, thankfully without a comb their grasp.

"Welcome to the land of hair dressing, boys. _Misa's _hairdresser wouldn't give a rat's behind about how much he hurt her scalp."

The curvature of Ryuuzaki's upper back bended even more as he clutched his legs tighter and tighter to his chest. It was obvious that he was uncomfortable, and Light was drinking up the scene like it was the sweetest champagne. Ryuuzaki always seemed so sure of himself, holding a quiet and slightly abnormal kind of confidence that would creep out even the cockiest of bastards. But now he crouched in his normal position, cowering like child about to be beaten just because a woman was giving his head a massage. Now this, was comedy.

Ryuuzaki trembled on the inside. His hyperawareness could practically feel each ridge of the prints on her finger pads, just rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. Sending the chills tip-toeing like mischievous insects through his vertebrae. She was only touching his head, but why did it feel like she was touching him _everywhere_?

His thumb slowly made its way up to his mouth where it came to its home of being in between two sets of teeth. This was by no means a thoughtful gesture as it was often seen as. It was out of pure nervousness.

"Ryuuzaki's trembling, is he cold?" Misa asked innocently.

The second the cursed words left her lips, Light's harmless smirk widened to dangerous proportions. It was futile to will the girl to stop talking. These two teenagers were playing with him like he was moldable goo. He would be damned if he let this continue, but with each brush of a smooth knuckle against the shell of his ear, he was losing a fraction of his ability to break away.

Time to wipe that leer off of Light Yagami's face.

Ryuuzaki reached up and gently pulled her hands out of his jet black locks, and miraculously lowered one of his legs out of his crouching position to swivel the chair around so he could face her. He held both of her hands in his tenderly.

"Misa, your hands are very skilled. But Light and I must get back to the task at hand."

She blinked again, eyes darting back and forth between the soft enigmatic smile on his face and the ashy defined hands that held her own that were comparatively small in his palms. Ryuuzaki rarely portrayed himself like this, but in this way he would get the both of them off his back and he could finally get back to work. He knew his abilities well though. And when he acted benevolent, it resonated. He could see it in Misa's face.

Deciding to milk his soon to be victorious escape for every second it was worth, Ryuuzaki lowered his head and placed a delicate kiss on the back of her left hand. Frankly he had expected her to yank her hand away and shriek something unoriginal and overused like…oh, 'pervert', but he was pleasantly surprised that she let him.

He let go of her hands and pivoted back around towards the monitor. There was no need to visually see what was going on. Misa's jaw was metaphorically touching the ground, Light's brow was furrowed because he no longer could enjoy Ryuuzaki's discomfort. And then the young woman would glance over at her hazel haired boyfriend, involuntarily comparing the two men's demeanors and wondering why dear Light-_kun _didn't treat her with the same kind of chivalry and respect.

Misa nodded. "Of course, Misa will leave you two alone."

She had said that many times, but it was the first time that anyone had ever heard it with the absence of sadness. And she did what she said she would do; she left, her thick black combat boots sounding her exit.

Light was glaring at him. Oh, it was _really _hard not to laugh now.

"You are some piece of work, you know that?"

Ryuuzaki, still wearing the slight but giddy smile across his thin lips, reached for a Hershey kiss and unwrapped it carefully until there was a red tin foil square and a slim white piece of paper lying evenly on top on the table in front of him.

"It's easy to speak to such an…enthusiastic girl like Misa Amane with austerity." Ryuuzaki said, melting the chocolate treat in between his teeth and his cheek. "Absurdly enough, she thrives on your ill treatment and is more inclined to stay and continue distracting us each time you distribute it."

The melted Hershey kiss slid down his throat, leaving a creamy trail on the way. "Provide her with some respect, and chances are she'll disengage peacefully."

"So…basically, you're saying that all I have to do is suck up to her and she'll leave me alone?"

"That's one way of looking at is, yes."

"Wait, why are you of all people drilling me on how to handle my relationship with Misa?"

"You don't have to take my advice. It's simply an observation, if anything else."

"Yeah, like you'd ever be able to _truly _know the ways of women."

"You may have a point, but it's common knowledge that most women, and men for that matter, don't wish to be treated like they're the scum off of someone's boot."

"In that case, I'll leave it up to you to take care of the situation every time Misa feels like dropping in."

Ryuuzaki paused for a moment.

"Not a bad idea, actually." He muttered.

"How so?" Light asked.

Ryuuzaki glanced down for a split second before his gaze was once again glued back to his computer. The screen reflected eerily in his black eyes, and there was a thin and almost nonexistent smile on his lips.

"Well if you ask me, Light, it's just better for all of us."


	8. Throbbing Poise

**Throbbing Poise**

**-:-**

True pain makes your insides rot until you're just a corpse masquerading as a living breathing creature. Simply using brashness and gritted teeth to keep the deceit fed and watered. It makes you grapple with the inner workings of your morality, making light into dark and dark into light. Or red. I think about the color red a lot. Especially when flesh around my eye reminds me I'm still in the land of the living by staying constantly inflamed and leathery like the jackets I wear.

It pulses every time I feel anything, the scar. Like I'm incubating a second body and fueling it with my energy. I'd like to call it my dark half, but that wouldn't make sense. Because both parts, _all _parts of me are filled with black oil to the brim.

The pain is a mirror to see yourself in. That becomes very troublesome when the last thing you want to look at is yourself. It steers you to and traps you in the very concept of survival, and you second glance everything about you as a person and the world around you, wondering if it is as it should be.

It lets you know you are alive. With nothing to look forward to but a death bathed in self sacrifice. And with my dying breath I'll say it had any purpose except for that.

I know the pain will never go away. In fact, it has proved to be a worthy ally. More than Matt, and certainly more than Near, the little cretin with a mind whose size swallows up the entirety of dear old Winchester. Since it has helped me so considerably in this pathetically fruitful little life of mine, I provide others with the gift. Like the Good Samaritan I am.

I'll be face to face with more flames soon. They'll lick my face and flicker in jealousy that the initial scar was not carved by them. And I'll laugh. So hard the tears will flow down my face and turn to steam as I bake in an oven designed just for someone like me.

I briefly wonder if one is allowed chocolate in Hell.

Probably not. I hear the Devil is even more of an asshole than I am.


	9. Answers

a/n: Unrelated storyline. Just so there's no confusion.

**Answers**

**-:-**

Tochigi Women's Prison is a blessing in disguise. In the beginning the prisoners would rather have that gorgeous, gleaming silver needle neatly imbedded into their arm, but as time goes on, they realize that it gives them a chance to just sit down and ponder, _really _ponder their lives. What went right, what went wrong, and every single little thing in between. By the time death calls, they remember every single little detail about their life spans; completely dug out from their unconsciouses out of the boredom of incarceration.

38 year old Nanase Takeuchi was sure that there was nothing left to dig up.

She could picture her daughter's face; that perfect face of beauty that she could see even when the girl was in her womb. Each contour was something a great deity could only dream of.

Emiko. Sweet Emiko.

So blissful, the very definition of innocence.

And something deep inside of Nanase knew that Satan resided under that innocent skin. Underneath her smooth flawless skin that her flesh basket of pregnancy helped form.

Although Emiko was half of her, she was also half of her father.

And if Nanase's husband wasn't the devil incarnate, then she didn't know what was.

Funny that today she would think of him. She had been in the prison for eight years, and rarely thought about her husband, yet she thought about her daughter every single second of every single day. It comforted her. It soothed her aching mentality.

And it also drove her insane.

She was one of the most well behaved prisoners in the entire sect. Yet little did the guards, her inmates themselves even, know that she was truly crazy.

Crazier than anyone they kept down in the level three lockdowns. Crazier than the child molesters or those who always mumbled to themselves or those who didn't say a word whatsoever.

She was drunk with love for her daughter. And it was something that could be kept very well hidden in a place like this.

Everyone rested in the rec-room after a hard day's work. The television with its bad reception scratched and wailed messages from the world through the speakers, every once in a while having to endure a large pound from a fist or futile adjustment of its rabbit ears to make the picture better. Nanase sat in her corner, the ninety degree angled walls surprisingly not indented from her occupation in the spot. She had been sitting in that corner every break, every day, for the last eight years. It was her spot. Everyone else seemed to understand this, and she was grateful.

The news was on. The reporters with their fancy hairdos and shiny lip gloss delivered the news with smiles on their faces, no matter what they were talking about. They could have been reporting a dead decapitated child found in a ditch and they would still smile. Such phoniness, but such strength. Nanase's working part of her brain vaguely wished that she could have such a skill of pretend. So many years since she had smiled, so many years since she used those facial muscles. Her skin felt like stone. It never budged, even when she worked hard with her inmates out in the blazing sun.

The name 'Kira' predictably came out of the speakers.

Just last week everyone from the west wing of Tochigi dropped dead. Well, not really dropped. Some hung themselves with their bed sheets, some smashed their skulls against the cell walls or the porcelain sinks, some forced larger parts of their bodies through the barred windows and ended up crushing themselves.

It was like a slow moving wave lurking its way through the prison. Every month or so, a group of people would die in their cells, or even fall into their food at breakfast, dead as can be. Nanase would see this, hear this, and it barely registered with her emotional catalog. Something would flicker inside of her mind, but she did not know what it was, nor cared to know. She was past hoping for parole, past living life day by day. Everything had melted together in one hard inescapable glass mold, and she felt no pain as she drowned. When Kimiko grasped her heart in the weight room, or when Hikaru cut her stomach up with her plastic butter knife, Nanase did nothing. They were dead. And alive, they had the same value.

A toxic monotony, and she did nothing to break it.

Except…when she thought about Emiko.

She actually felt things when she thought about Emiko. She wanted to hug her knees in claustrophobia, in fear. In sadness that the girl was being raised by other people and not her own mother.

She wanted to talk to her daughter. To see how she was. If she had a boyfriend. If she was going to college. When she got her first period. What she wanted to do as a profession.

To run her fingers through the girl's hair that was probably thick and jet black like hers.

Nanase didn't feel a thing when she relived the memory of stabbing a long butcher knife into the heart of her husband, but all she had to do was envision her child's face, and her feelings were a pliable sickening butter. She had been convicted of murder, with no chance of being released. Last she heard, they were still trying to decide whether she was to receive the death penalty or not.

She used to get so angry when she thought about her husband. How he smoked in the house, even though she told him how bad it was for Emiko's lungs. How he would sleep around with other women. How his eyes would become glassy and lecherous whenever he would come home to find Emiko spread out on the living room floor doing her homework, still in her school uniform.

How his fist connected with her cheek bone.

Before she changed, she thought about domestic abuse and shook her head in disbelief. A husband always wants a pretty wife. How could he keep one if he ruined her face?

There was no care in his beatings. She could have gone on so much longer if he had just hit her below her neck. Bruises on her stomach, bruises on her breasts, legs, back…

None of that even mattered. She would have been content if he had left her face alone.

And then, with Kirin beer on his breath, he would come home, asking her to take off her apron and lift up her skirt, and in a drunken frenzy would screw her right on the kitchen table. Fighting this demand in particular would mean certain death. She only rejected him once; the first time that he came home and slid a hand up her inner thigh and told her to spread them, he beat her so badly she didn't know if she would live to see the next day. She stayed there on the kitchen floor as he went and passed out in their bedroom, and would rise the next morning with a face covered in dried blood and her underwear around her ankles. After that, she obeyed; did everything he asked for, not even allowing her urge to vomit to become real.

Perhaps the insanity didn't start in the prison, she used to think. Perhaps it was that one night that she crept into their bedroom. He was passed out on the bed once again, and she just stared at his sleeping figure. Had he opened his eyes, he would have seen his wife standing over him with a Noh mask expression, her body silhouetted in the doorway by the dim hallway light. Or maybe it was the next night that she did the same thing after kissing her daughter goodnight.

Or the next night.

And the night after that.

All she knew was by the time she went to the kitchen and took the knife out of the drawer, habitually wiping it on her apron like she would before cooking dinner, there was no way she was in her right mind. When the knife came down on her husband's chest cavity, the blood splattered her face and stained her tongue red. Her poor mind was so far gone that not even the relief of having done away with the one demon in her life came to rescue her.

Policemen.

Cherry red and sky blue flashing lights.

Handcuffs.

A joke of a trial.

Jail.

And then finally, prison.

Still in the corner, Nanase snuck a look at the television. Prisoners crowded around the box with a fuzzy picture, quiet as a tomb. It was an interview with a policeman who had been one of many to back out of the Kira investigation for fear of losing their lives in the process.

"_Kira operates by killing criminals without having direct contact with any victim-"_

Killing criminals…nothing new.

"_He is a menace to society-"_

Since when were criminals valued members of society?

"_And those who stayed within the investigation will stop at nothing to bring him down."_

From what she had heard about this Kira, he seemed like he had a God complex. Like he was the ultimate stage of judgment, the very last step to see if a human was good or bad, to see if they deserved to live or not. A swift and merciless hammer of justice, or something resembling it.

And his presence at Tochigi had been very prominent lately. Prisoners were dropping like flies.

Nanase bowed her head so that it touched the top of her knees. It was rare that she questioned whether she had done the right thing or not, because so many times she thought it had been done on instinct. Strip away every fiber of a person's well-being, and it's the same as cornering a lion. Or so the saying goes; and it was quite true with her.

Such an obedient wife, she was. A good mother, she was. Kept a good vault of secrets, yes she did.

Did Kira know her story?

Would Kira take into consideration what she had to go through before she made her decision?

Did he just assume that all criminals were bad? Or did he have the power to see? To _truly _see?

Nanase Takeuchi hugged her knees tight, and pursed her lips tighter. Her time was coming soon. She could feel it in her empty bones which she filled with a dulled vacant loathing for everything that happened to her. Kira was coming for her, coming for her life, getting closer and closer to getting her name.

Well that was just fine.

If she had done the right thing, then she would be spared. And free to live out the rest of her days in Tochigi.

If she had done the wrong thing, then she would die soon. Of a heart attack or other means. Part of her hoped it would be creative, then maybe her muted nerves would feel _something_.

Come on, Kira. You have the gavel. Do you truly know how to use it?


	10. Sworn to Secrecy

**Sworn to Secrecy**

-:-

Mello was well known for his displays of emotion; his intense outcries from the depths of his perceivably ugly soul. Even as youthful as he was, the children of Wammy's did their very best to avoid even something as miniscule as his gaze. He stepped along the hallways of the orphanage like he was trying to send a message to Satan himself, warning the beast of his coming. A brief upturn of the corner of his upper lip, the narrowing of his sharp blue diamond eyes, and it was the same as being on fire. A melting, severe feeling, filled with the intention to inflict the hurt that was once done unto him.

But all of that aside, Matt didn't believe an ounce of evil existed within this boy. There was nothing outlandish about pain, nothing abnormal about wanting the world to feel what boils underneath your skin. Even though no one exhibited it to an extent as Mello did, Wammy's children felt what it was like. They had to, otherwise…

Matt didn't really understand that kind of stuff. Well he could, but…it just couldn't be formed into words. So rarely did he try. He just harbored his comprehension as something too deep to describe. Each acknowledgement of such insight was released and drowned at the same time in puff after puff of the smoke of burning tobacco. It didn't do well to trouble himself with that type of thing. He would have plenty of time to lament his own existence and all that crap when he was much older; when the term 'partner in crime' would have some real merit to it like he and Mello had talked about.

But right now, he just leaned against the building, not caring that the screen door was doing a poor job at shielding his cigarette smoke from going inside the lower level of the west wing, and only mildly interested as a small crowd some twenty feet away crowded around each other in a circle.

Roger had gotten a kitten, eight months old already. It was ironic to the more prominent thinkers that a prestigious and well respected institution like Wammy's would have such a huge problem with mice.

Kids immediately flocked to it. Matt was no exception. But he wasn't among the few that squealed in delight. Sure, he might've scratched underneath its chin once or twice, but that was all. He didn't like the idea of getting animal hair on his clothes anyways.

Matt was considered among the more gifted children at the orphanage, but he wasn't sure if he would ever understand a human's infatuation with animals. They were cute, he guessed, but it got ridiculous. The damn thing had been there for a month already and kids were still 'oohing' and 'ahhing' over it like it was a five mile long golden nugget. Sometimes he just wanted to say 'it's a four legged fur ball with a snotty heart-shaped nose and that's all'. The fawning was getting ridiculous.

It _was _cute though.

The screen door slid open abruptly and slammed shut.

Only one person slammed doors even when they weren't enraged.

Mello came and stood next to Matt, unaffected by his friend's cigarette smoke. Nonetheless, Matt offered to put it out.

"I couldn't give a shit what you did with your cigarette." He said curtly.

Matt smiled slightly, shrugged, and held the stick back to his dry cracked lips. One thing he enjoyed about Wammy's was the privilege of smoking. He was young in the eyes of the regular public; prohibited from the act of inhaling tobacco simply because of his age. But here, if he remained pliable and obedient (most of the time), he was allowed as many cigarettes as he pleased, just as long as he did it outside.

Oh, the reasonability.

"Are they still getting hard-ons from that stupid cat?" Mello nearly spat. Matt resisted a chuckle. Mello was so demonstrative about everything.

"Seems that way." Matt replied indifferently. He looked to his side to see an ashtray made especially for him on a thin metal table. A five year old with autistic tendencies had made it for him a little while back. Her name was Eliza or something; he didn't care to remember. All he knew was that it beat throwing the butts in the grass and risking burning down the whole orphanage. That'd sure be an unpleasant thing to carry on his conscience, and he was _pretty _sure he had one of those.

"What a bunch of little dumbasses."

The blonde version of Richard Pryor here, however, was still under speculation in that department.

The redhead watched as his cohort stalked over to the small crowd, and couldn't help but smile in amusement as the kids automatically broke up at the sight of the young teen whose face was so contorted in psychotic anger that sometimes it was almost comical. Mello's voice carried so clearly, it was like he was still standing next to Matt.

"Shouldn't you brats be studying or something? This thing doesn't look like a pile of books to me." Mello sneered at the children sitting on the grass below him, paralyzed by fear.

Mello turned his nose downwards at the small bundle of calico fluff, staring back up at him with an expression resembling nothing of the fright carried by the younger children. It looked blank. Fearless even. The blonde reached down and grabbed the cat a little too roughly by the scruff of its neck. Even then, the kitten didn't blink.

The kids however thought he was hurting it. Matt always knew that Mello took some sort of strange pleasure out of making anyone cry, so it was evident that this wasn't going to end anytime soon.

A boy called Joseph but went by the nickname of 'Crater' stood up and made a pathetic attempt at sizing Mello up. "Put him _down_." He said firmly.

Matt grimaced. Standing up to Mello was like going against a grizzly bear. If you just lied down and stayed still for long enough, he'd go away. Try to defend yourself, and he would just get nastier. Mello took the tip of his index finger, touched the tip of it to the child's forehead, and then jabbed him so hard that Crater fell back down with the rest of the children. "I'll do whatever the hell I want, champ."

Still holding the soundless cat by its scruff, he brought it up to eye level, his diamond eyes glinting with something that everyone in his proximity was too scared to notice.

"And what I want…" He said, dropping the cat back onto the grass, and it landed gracefully on its feet like any feline should. "…is for you guys to stop jerking off to the cat. It's here to catch the rats, not to be smothered to death by little bastards like you."

And he stalked off back in Matt's direction. A few kids wiped the snot and tears off their faces, not bothering to mask their volume when they said '_what an ass!'. _But if anything, it made the smirk on Mello's face widen further. Matt wanted to roll his eyes, but doing anything to even slightly hinder Mello's fun wasn't wise. Mello's dramatic outbursts were normally pretty funny, but…

"Need I remind you that we're _all _technically bastards?" Matt said as Mello made his way back to the screen door.

Mello ignored him, opening and closing the door with a satisfied slam, disappearing inside. The young smoker sighed, exhaling the last of his cigarette and dropping the butt into the ashtray on the table beside him. He considered taking out one of many of his handheld gaming devices from the depths of his pocket, but then a vague idea planted itself in his brain like an inconspicuous weed. Bugs and Daffy's Looney Tune Adventure could wait. The children in the field had recovered from Mello's onslaught and were once again taking turns on stroking the cat's back. He started walking over to the younger kids, who looked at him like he was going to do the same to them as Mello did.

"Hey there, did you guys name 'im yet?" Matt said as he crouched down next to them.

"Uh uh." They all said in unison, shaking their heads. They still looked apprehensive, but Matt wasn't about to do anything about that. Just as well; in a place like Wammy's it was easy to grow soft and comfortable. Perhaps that's why people like Mello existed. To keep everyone on their toes. His lips pulled upwards as the children crinkled their cute noses at the smell of cigarettes that wafted about him.

"Well when you're done make sure you put him inside. Roger would skin us alive if he found out we lost the damn thing."

Judging by the kitten's reluctance to do anything really, Matt decided that his implied worry for the cat running away was completely useless. Giving one last tiny smile he left the kids in the field and walked inside, pulling out the game from his pocket. Within seconds his thumbs were expertly flying over each button. This would entertain him for hours to come.

-:-

During day, no matter what time, it was always noisy. Even when the majority of the kids were in the libraries studying, Wammy's never failed to sound like a raucous daycare until everyone was in their dorms or settled in bed. But it was only seven in the evening, and though children were retiring from the grounds, that meant that the house was more crowded than ever.

It was the end of the day, and Matt was already on the last level of his game. Although his thumbs ached from slamming themselves against the buttons continuously for more than four hours, they never slowed in speed. The zone had taken over his brain and he didn't react as he was pushed and shoved; the consequence of not watching where he was going in a crowded orphanage. He was almost finished. Almost. Just a little further.

God, but his thumbs _hurt. _

Sighing in defeat, he paused the game and saved his progress. He hated it when his thumbs got sore. _Now _what was he going to do to amuse himself until he went to bed?

Like it was programmed into his brain, he started climbing the stairs to the second floor. It was nighttime that always made Mello even more wired than he was during the day, and normally it was the time that Matt actually made a point to avoid him. Why did all of the smart kids have to be total night owls, he sometimes wondered. He could always plop himself down in front of the television with some of the younger kids and join them in watching whatever inane show was airing, or he could smoke the rest of his pack of cigarettes, he could greedily clean out the fridge for the third time that week, or maybe he could-

"_JESUS!_"

Matt bit his lip to stop from howling in pain as he tripped over a large contraption built entirely of tinker toys. Pieces flew everywhere as he fell. He rolled over to his side, angry mumbles escaping his lips, only to look at the bemused face of Near in his familiar sitting position with what could be called the finishing piece in his hand, showing the slightest bit of annoyance at the destruction of his Ferris wheel. But he didn't say anything. The look disappeared as quickly as it came, and like a robot he immediately began rebuilding his creation.

"Sorry about that…" Matt muttered apologetically, sitting up and rubbing the sole of his bare foot, now indented painfully with the mark of the pieces he stepped on. Only Near would be random enough to be sitting in the middle of the second floor hallway playing with his toys.

Near simply shrugged. "It's nothing."

Matt was about to get up and leave; interacting with Near was pretty much the same as trying to have a conversation with a stark white wall that had a mouth and the ability to form words. But as he rose something on the boy's pale face caught his eye. At least three long flaming red scratches marred his face, and they looked fresh.

"Whoa, what happened to your face?"

In yet another brief show of emotion, Near narrowed his eyes. But his hands didn't stop moving as they connected the tinker toys together at lightning speed.

"Mello dropped a cat on my face."

Matt snorted with laughter. "What?! How in the hell did that happen?"

"I had fallen asleep in the computer lab, and he dropped it on my face." Near brought a hand up to one of the scratches and rubbed it protectively.

Matt put a hand over his mouth to try and suffocate his chortles. The cuts really did look like they were causing the kid quite a bit of pain, but god. Mello's antics were often more than obnoxious, but this took the cake. And he knew Mello disliked Near, but…

Lighting his hair on fire would have been more fitting. This whole cat thing seemed like something Mello would do to _him_, not his rival. Seemed too chummy. And even more, what the hell was Mello even doing with the cat? He practically abused it in front of those kids in the field earlier that day.

"I fail to see the humor in this. I could've been blinded today." Near said, his words failing to convey any irritation he might have or hadn't felt.

"Yeah yeah, I know. Sorry, about the scratches and stuff. Happen to know where Mr. Cat Dropper is?"

"Probably in his room. I assume you were on your way there before you tripped over my toys."

Mello could be such a terror. If people thought he was a lumbering time bomb during the day, at night they may as well have been harboring a closet serial killer with a crazy sense of humor and a booming laugh that couldn't have cared less how many people it woke. Roger started recommending (well, _imploring _actually) Mello to just stay in his room when the sun went down.

"He's taken a curious liking to that feline." Near said softly, unblinkingly keeping his eyes glued to his task.

"Yeah right. Mello hates cats." Matt scoffed.

"Have you ever heard him say that?"

"I don't need to. He generally hates everything; why rule out cats?"

"Despite how he carries himself, I seriously doubt he can hate _everything._"

"Um, excuse me, which one of us is the one who spends the most time with the guy, hmm?" Matt said, standing up and furrowing his brow at the boy who was still sitting on the floor.

"You, obviously." Near said. "But he's with the cat as we speak."

"Uh huh, sure."

Matt turned to journey to Mello's room, but was stopped by a pale hand firmly clasped around his wrist.

"You don't believe me." Near stated.

"Not really. Is that a problem?"

"No."

Near rose, demonstrating a kind of initiative that he was certainly not known for, and abandoned his toys in the hallway to lead Matt in the direction to Mello's room. Matt wasn't really sure what the kid was trying to do. He really hoped that he wasn't planning on _really _coming with him. Near wasn't allowed in Mello's room. Or his general vicinity. Yet there he was, leading the way to the very place in Wammy's that was comparable to the gate of no return.

The door to Mello's room was cracked, which in itself was one of the strangest occurrences in the history of humankind, but Matt peeked through, and so did Near a foot underneath him to view something even stranger. Two pairs of eyes peered into the room, and Matt raised his eyebrows.

Mello was on his bed, which was covered by a crushed velvet spread, with the cat who was supposed to be downstairs in the kitchen hunting vermin-like game. The thing was curled up in a ball in a concave spot on the bed, close to Mello's face. His long fingers scratched the kitten's spinal cord, and the animal arched its back contentedly.

Matt had never seen him act like this. His friend, lord of all things brazen, was cuddling an animal that was bound to shed fur all over his bed and probably make his eyes water, but he didn't seem to care. When the cat reached out its neck to affectionately lick Mello's lips with its rough tongue, that was when Matt couldn't stand it anymore, and he snorted loudly.

Mello's neck snapped upwards, eyes focusing quickly, sharply.

"Who the hell's outside my door?!"

Matt fought the urge to slap his forehead. If only he had kept quiet.

"Calm down, it's just me." He said dejectedly, opening the door wider to further reveal himself.

"Why're you spying on me? All you had to do was knock, dumbass."

Matt jumped at the sound of Near's voice. He swore, the kid was like a ghost. "Close your door properly, and such an invitation wouldn't even be instigated."

Mello's lips sneered. "Get outta here, whitey. You know I don't like you within a twenty foot radius of my room."

"Yet you approach me willingly to drop a cat onto my head. Sounds like you want my company quite a bit, Mello. Going out of your way just to get my attention…gosh."

Matt raised his eyebrows once again in surprise of Near's sudden cheekiness. Mello and the cat…Near and actual emotion…had they stepped into the Twilight Zone?

Treading over the threshold of the hallway and his friend's room, Matt approached the black bed and sat down on the corner. "So apparently _you've _got a hard-on for the cat now, eh Mel?"

"I just like plucking out its whiskers, that's all."

"Right, of course." Matt laughed, stretching out so that he was also on his stomach and scratching the cat's side with the tip of his finger.

"Can I see it?" Near's soft voice said, still in the doorway. They both looked over at him; Matt had no say. This was Mello's room; Mello's kingdom. Mello was king.

"Ugh…" Mello rolled his eyes. "Fine, just don't screw anything up with your…screwiness."

Near walked over to the bed, but still kept a good distance away from the animal. He watched as the creature kept pawing idly at the prayer beads hanging indolently around the blonde's neck with twinkling black eyes, but made no reach towards it.

"Well Near, are you going to stand there like a used douche all day or are you gonna pet it?" Mello jeered.

"This is the same animal that scratched up my face earlier today, if you remember."

"Personally I think it's a nice makeover for you." Mello said. "You're already violating the law of never _ever _being allowed in my room. Might as well take another chance and face the beast head on."

For a split second Near narrowed his eyes at his rival. He obviously did not like being patronized, but his apprehension was evident when he finally reached out to brush his pale fingers along the furry side of the cat. His tense body relaxed when the ball of fluff did nothing but close its eyes and purr.

"This thing ruined my face." Near muttered, repeating a fraction of his previous sentence.

"That'll teach you to fall asleep in front of a public computer, stack-'ems." Mello smirked so deeply one of his canine teeth couldn't help but show. "If anything you should be blaming me for my genius antics. I'm not gonna let it take the credit for that."

Near finally knelt down on the floor with his torso leaning on the bed. His delicate index finger scratched underneath the cat's chin.

"I'd hardly call it genius." He said faintly, but Near always had an uncanny ability to have bite to his voice when it was barely above a whisper.

"Well I would, so do us all a favor and shut up."

Near surprisingly obeyed. And Mello surprisingly didn't command him to leave. The three of them sat on the blonde's bed, a finger belonging to each of them stroking the kitten's skin. It's eyes were nearly closed, and it was curled up into a tight ball only eight inches in diameter. Indistinct vibrations still traveled through its little body.

"So what did you name it, Mello?" Matt said after a few moments of silence.

"Who said I named it?" Mello said defensively.

Matt only gave his friend a knowing stare, and Mello's thin lips twitched once to the side in defeat.

"I was thinking…Jade."

Matt's brow furrowed. There was one itty bitty problem with that…

"Jade." A voice below them repeated blandly. "That's a very feminine name. Or perhaps you didn't notice the feline's male genitalia."

"I _know _it's male, ass clown." Mello spat at the pale boy. "But I mean…look at him. No matter what I do he's just sits there. I'll bet I could throw him across the room and he'd just purr."

"He certainly didn't seem jaded when you dropped him on my face." Near said.

Mello stared at the boy with narrowed azure eyes. "Get over it, will you?"

Near shrugged, and then he stood. A finger wormed its way up to his forest of hair and twirled several strands around a crease of his index knuckle. "I'm going to bed."

And he left, reverting back to his aloof conduct that everyone knew and didn't quite love.

"This sure has been one hell of a weird night." Matt sighed.

"What do you mean" Mello asked.

"Well first you start bonding with an animal (and Lord knows you have enough trouble getting along with people), and then you actually let Near spend ten minutes in your presence; without nearly biting his head off and spitting it back out, mind you."

"And…your point is?"

"My little Mello's growing up!"

That earned him a gentle punch in his right arm. Of course, gentle for Mello wasn't saying much. Matt yelped softly and then proceeded in rubbing the spot tenderly after the assault, but he was still lopsidedly smiling.

With his expression still pulsing in annoyance, Mello looked back down at the cat that had stopped all action whatsoever. It was curled up even tighter than before and rhythmically breathing. Jade had fallen asleep.

"Aw." Matt said, half mocking half reverent, reaching over and cupping the cat's small curved back in the palm of his hand. The thing was so small. He absentmindedly wondered how big it was going to grow as the years went on.

"You know I'll kill you if you tell anyone about this, right?" Mello said, eyeing him carefully through his curtain of corn silk hair.

"C'mon man, it's just a friggen' cat. No one's going to care if-"

"You know I'll kill you if you tell anyone about this, _right_?" Mello repeated, adding much more emphasis to his guarantee.

"Yeah, I do…" Matt conceded sulkily. His eyes widened again as his friend lowered his head and pressed his lips against the soft back of the sleeping creature. Not once had he ever seen him act like this; all tender and…non-violent. For an animal small enough to wipe your ass with, no less.

Matt rolled off of the bed and walked towards the door.

"Anyways, I'll leave you with your new love. Goodnight." And he closed the door, an object of some kind predictably hitting the other side and Mello's voice calling out an affectionate _screw you _along with it. Matt bit his lip to keep from smiling too much. Of course he'd keep his vague agreement of being sworn to secrecy. He honestly didn't think it was that big of a deal, but he supposed that when you had a reputation such as Mello's to keep up, something as trivial as this was just the tiniest bit threatening.

Matt retired to his room, taking out the same game that had made his thumbs abysmally sore earlier that evening, and made it his goal to beat the final boss before the sun came up.

-:-

a/n: This was long. And I don't know what I was subconsciously smoking when I wrote it. Sorry for the inconvenience.


	11. Protege Moi

**Protégé Moi**

**-:-**

His body felt so much more tired _before _he had climbed into bed. And now that he had, his brain buzzed, energized with thoughts that should have festered and died a long time ago. The pillow was soft, the blanket was heavy and provided an ample amount of security, and the lights from the buildings outside were drawn out so that they dimly lit the room and scared away a potential block of pitch black. He was comfortable. Warm. Soft clumps of his hair fell over his eyelids trying to persuade them to close and surrender to what he had set out to do in the first place.

Despite all of this, Light Yagami could not sleep.

To think, it was _he _who could not sleep now. All those nights he had spent awake and chained to the detective wishing that he would just allow him to lay his head down and doze off seemed like a blessing now. And when the miracle of L agreeing to actually go and sleep in a bed this time arose after much gentle persistence from Light, it was as if Christmas had come early.

And his body threw the gift away. He lay awake in the bed, a foot and a half away from an unconscious L, and he was jealous beyond belief.

He was accused of being Kira so many times during the investigation. But after his incarceration, everything just seemed so blurry, so uncertain. He had no recollection of those murders he was convicted of. In the end he decided that the cell in which he was kept was something of a sanction in some way.

He used all of his power to make it so he was truly guiltless in the task force's eyes. At first he was focused on proving his innocence, deftly avoiding and disproving anything that pointed to him being the culprit. But it was times like this that the allegations got under his skin, and he considered the possibilities of L's assertions. Had the ultimate murderer really crawled inside of his mind and controlled him? Was he really Kira's puppet and forced to use the blood soaked strings attached to his arms and legs to kill all of those people? Was he really the executioner of hundreds of whom he had never known at _all _personally?

Light's once firm principle that he wasn't the person who was killing by vast numbers behind a veil of false justice and cowardice was on its last stilts. Because even if he wasn't in control, couldn't keep himself from killing them, even if it were of no real fault of his own…

He would still be a killer.

And he wasn't completely sure he could handle that.

No…

He wasn't completely sure he _couldn't _handle that. And such a realization was quite scary.

How could he bring a criminal to justice when his own innocence was faltering heavily?

God he just wished he could go to sleep. Just shut off his chattering thoughts and rest. But instead, he was laying on his side, still trying to settle himself in a temporary serenity, and staring into the face of L who was also sleeping in his direction.

What else could he say about the detective besides that he was as distrustful as he was cunning? Fearless as well, perhaps…

It bothered Light, how someone could be so…what was the word…

Detached?

It was the only word that fit. Although L was obviously fervid about his profession in his own quiet way, sometimes Light would look at him and just see a puddle of logistics and equations; the contents of the deep bowl that was L's head. So filled with data that there was no room for anything else. Light wondered, was there anger beyond that insipid skin? Sadness? Joy?

An empty shell. With nothing but the problems of the world keeping his heart pumping.

It dispirited Light to think that.

And yet even the expressionless innocence on the detective's quiescent face didn't disprove the possibility at all.

Light couldn't deny it. He was scared. Scared of the deadly likelihood that he was Kira. That they would find Kira. That Kira was really God descended upon the Earth. That Kira was everywhere and everyone, and would never be caught.

In Misa's room, they had fought tooth and nail (or rather…fist and foot) about L's confession about being frustrated with the case, but even as the heel of his foot connected with Light's cheek, he felt an eerie vacancy in his blows.

Ugh…L.

His rival, companion, partner, and friend.

And ironically it was _him _who was sleeping peacefully that night while Light was kept up by the constant taunting of their endless predicaments. Never in their entire time together had he seen him sleep. In fact, most of the time while he rested he could hear the clicking sound of a laptop keyboard all the way in the dream realm. Light was so tired, but could not find it in himself to simply close his eyes and join L. Then again, perhaps it was the fact that L was sleeping at all that was making Light unable to finally succumb to his own exhaustion. It was just too weird sleeping next to someone who barely called the action habitual.

The blanket was pulled up to his sharp boney shoulders, keeping out any breeze that would have wanted to invade. His eyes were closed, lashes joining the dark bags in looking like two feathery black crescent moons. Two thin almost nonexistent lips were parted in leisure to allow heavy breaths bordering on snores pass through. Only a large clump of split ended onyx hair was visible from under the comforter.

Light narrowed his eyes. The guy didn't even _like _to sleep, and there he was across from him on the king sized bed, completely unaware of the world around him for once, and disconnected from the grating of the handcuff around his wrist; something that Light still had to endure in consciousness.

Having sweet dreams.

No…he doubted he even had the humanly attribute to dream.

Why he was sleeping in the presence of the supposed Kira though was peculiar.

Perhaps he truly _wasn't _capable of feeling fear, or any other intense emotion that was so popular amongst normal people.

L's lack of fear. Light's possession of it. Frustrating.

He rolled over, not caring if he pulled most of the blanket over on his side. And for one last time before he accepted that he was just going to have yet another sleepless night, he shut his eyes tightly and tried to force himself to rest.

After a few moments…or hours, Light couldn't exactly determine which, there was quite a lot of shuffling on the other side of the bed. He didn't pay too much attention to it at first, until finally he felt the freezing chain of the handcuffs land on his leg, having been thrown onto his side by L's apparent restlessness. Growling quietly in annoyance, Light looked over his shoulder, only to have his eyes widen a small fraction.

L's face wasn't calm anymore. It no longer had the appearance of a baby who had aged too quickly. His absent eyebrows were bunched together, and his lips were curving into a small grimace. With his cheek resting on the very pale underside of his forearm, he opened his mouth and involuntarily bit the pliable skin.

Light rolled back over, if only to stare at the frightening yet remarkable occurrence.

"Protégé moi…"

At the outlandish utterance Light sat up, gazing down at the man with a newfound concentration.

The detective was dreaming.

No, having a _nightmare._

"_Protégé moi…_"

This time L said it with much more prominence. And he sounded…dare Light think it…scared?

And what in the world was he saying? It was late; and although wide awake the younger man couldn't place right away what he could have identified easily in the day. Protégé moi…protégé moi…

...Protect me?

He couldn't take this anymore. Light reached over with a gentle but sturdy hand, cupped L's shoulder, and shook it.

"Ryuuzaki…_Ryuuzaki_!" Light whispered harshly, hoping the wake the man before the nightmare escalated into a night terror. Well…that was admittedly pretty improbable, but there was just something unnerving about seeing the detective mutter such an unsettling phrase in his sleep. Who knew what he was dreaming about?

L awoke abruptly. His eyes snapped open, wide and like that of a nocturnal bird of prey, as if he had never been asleep in the first place. The only giveaway was his uneven breathing.

"Yes, Light?"

"You…you were talking in your sleep." Light said softly. Why was he talking to him like a deer he was afraid would scamper off? He was a grown man for God's sake.

"Was I?" L said mildly. "I apologize."

They stared at each other for a few seconds. And then Light frowned.

"It sounded like you were having a bad dream."

"I'm sure it did."

Their words paused, but their gazes didn't break.

"Care to share?" Light asked suddenly.

"I don't, I'm afraid…" L said faintly, not sounding entirely dismissing. In fact, he still seemed out of breath from whatever he was running away from in the confines of his mind.

"Who were you asking to protect you?"

The older man paused. "Anyone, really."

"And from who?"

"…I don't remember my dreams very well, Light."

Now _that _sounded dismissive. So Light decided to drop it.

The two lied in the bed for a few more minutes before L sat up and stretched, bending the warp in his upper spine in the opposite direction. Light winced as he heard several sickening cracks as the discs released the air pockets in between them. L then leaned over the bed to fetch a laptop from underneath the bed.

"I'm quite awake now, so I'm going to do some work. It's three hours until the sun rises, so you're free to go back to sleep if you wish."

The screen came on, lighting L's face unmusically. Light shook his head, and sat up as well.

"No…I'll join you."


	12. Cold Fervency

**Cold Fervency**

**-:-**

Her mouth tasted foul as she gulped down a lump of mucus that had gathered at the back of her throat. The fresh air hadn't done anything to console her mood. In fact, the vast view of the city from the highest building in a twenty mile radius only made the ocular dams decide to spill over again. Misa hated crying. She hated how red spider's legs slowly spread in the whites of her eyes, how her nose ran and dripped its bacterial contents onto her delicate upper lip, how the salt that was supposed to heal any invisible punctures on the surfaces of her corneas only stung and blinded her further.

Her forehead was sweaty as well. Why, she wondered, when it was so freezing.

It made her feel ugly.

To feel ugly was to be ugly.

A mirror was a most unwelcome object. And they were everywhere in her suite. On the cabinet in the bathroom, the full body in her bedroom, and four in the sitting room. They glinted and mocked her with her own reflection. Few times existed when she would turn away from herself. Up until just recently, actually, she loved herself. Loved her own voice, loved her personality, loved her appearance especially. She would often run her fingers through her dyed sunshine colored hair just to marvel at its artificial softness. It didn't matter that there were people out there who called her fake; a phony little blond princess who held her own brain in her hand and refused to put it back in her head. None of it mattered; she was wonderful.

She thought she was wonderful.

It was chilly up on the roof. The wind caressed her skin with good intentions, trying to cool down her overheated body. A sickness was raging through her body, and she didn't consider that it was the flu or a cold virus, but knew better. Oh so much better.

The heat surged every time the imagery of a sandy haired young man flashed behind her blazing red eyelids. His plastic smile was so beautiful. His false gazes of imitation love were so beautiful. Everything he did was so beautiful.

All he had to do was open his mouth and she would oblige any ghost of a whisper that he gave. He held her life in her hands, really. She didn't think that, she _knew _it. And it was making her sick. Deep down underneath all of those layers, her higher self, the one that was free of the plastic morgue that she had built for herself, was crying in shame for this dispersal of worth and personal power. All for a boy who had promised many, many things. Dates. Love. Affection. Peace. A cure for all the loneliness that her forced-to-become-real happiness fought to accept.

To be used. An intriguing and even arousing thought in theory. Seen everywhere in books. In movies. In an imagination that makes a risk to indulge, bringing the thinker one step closer to a healthy insanity.

The truth of it made her sick. Literally. She was used. She was thrown to the side. And she came back for more like an attention-craving puppy tricked into believing that the abuse would somehow morph into something truly divine.

The stress was killing her from the inside out. She was living her life day by day on his fake smiles and brief touches, always accidental. It looked like a whimsical fancy to the world, but little did they know her devotion was real. So real that it brought down everything around her. In secret, she hated judgment. Whenever she was alone and hurting, she thought about the judgment. Kira permanently sentenced the individual who had slain her parents, and she was thankful. It was not lost on her that this was indeed selfish, however natural and understandable it was that she felt that way. She loved thinking of that man writhing in hell as his skin was being peeled off by blue glowing flames. And how that would continue forever, and ever, and ever. Until it ceased. Which would be never, ever, ever.

The world could judge all it wanted. It could judge her until she was picked clean like a carcass by buzzards. They could. Let them.

It was Light's judgment that she couldn't handle.

He stood on a golden pew, far from her reach. He looked down upon her like he would a cockroach, and her pigtails were her jagged antennae navigating through the darkness because she wasn't fit for the light of day.

After she met the Yagami boy, she no longer felt wonderful.

Perhaps this was a good thing. She adored illusions, personally. But if Light's intent was to break her of this adoration, then it must be for the best. If he wanted to expose her for the leech that she was, then he would have his wish. She would do anything for Light. Anything.

Suffering not even deemed an exception.

Her bare toes were bright red as they curled, trying to protect themselves from the biting wind. Fall was normally so pleasant, and yet today the air whipped around her in constant circles. And she sweated and sweated. And thought and thought. And God forbid that anyone would find her up there like that, sicker than she ever remembered being, in nothing but a flowery vomit stained tank top and a mismatching black skirt, disheveled blond hair, stress breakouts dotting her normally flawless back like disgusting swollen red freckles, and bloodshot whites that clashed with her forget-me-not colored irises.

It gave her no peace, any of this. But no amount of frostbite or other physical affliction could convince her to go back inside. Not right now. Not when there were more seconds to spare from going back in there and being withered to black and yellow dust by sharp honey eyes.

The roof had shiny panes of stone. Marble, maybe. The construction of the vicinity was not wasted, but she couldn't help but think it was overcompensating for something. Perhaps it was like her, always acting out flamboyantly to hide some other obvious but deterrent flaw of hers. Misa looked down at the shiny marble, seeing a blurred version of herself staring back at her. It was so distorted she appeared to have black eyes. Black, empty eyes. She turned away from it. It was too accurate for her to look upon it for too long. Reminded her of someone she detested.

God forbid.

God forbid _anyone _seeing her like this-

"Amane."

Giving a turn that certainly had the potential to cause whiplash and made her fevered head throb, Misa narrowed her eyes at the sight of the famous analytical gargoyle that wore clothes and shoes and pretended to be human. The guise made her sick; more than her own did. Although he was not the last person she wanted to see, that wasn't saying much. She wanted to be the only person in the world at the moment; then she'd only have to take pain from herself. At least she was merciful. And it didn't help that she looked and felt like this in front of the second most arbitrating person in the world, after Light.

Ryuuzaki blinked once, soaking in the truth and reality of the situation like a fast-acting sponge. It never took him long to assess anything.

"You appear to be quite sick. I don't think it's wise for you to be up here like this."

Smudged cherry red lips sneered. The beginning of a lecture. This…she didn't need this. She needed to be alone. To heal herself. No more belittlement, no more devotion.

"What the hell is _Ryuuzaki _doing up here, then?" She asked, harshness in the inquiry not lost, even in the wind.

"I come up here on my free time."

"You don't have free time." She said resentfully, wondering shortly after why she said it in the first place. Probably a subconscious scoff at her lack of time with Light. All thanks to Ryuuzaki.

"Not much, I'll admit."

They stood, five feet apart, braving the gusts. Misa risked a glance at the detective, almost hoping to catch his gaze and deliver a deadly stare in quiet retaliation of him disturbing her bittersweet solitude. He appeared to be paying no attention to her, though. His 's' shaped posture stood surprisingly sturdy against the wind, and his curved neck strained to look upwards at the overcast sky.

"Misa would like you to go away, Ryuuzaki." She muttered.

He turned and looked at her with the same blank look that instilled more anger in her than a bad photo shoot and a skipped date with Light ever could.

"It would be more reasonable if you left instead. You're in no shape to be out in this weather, and I have long since claimed this area as my own. Although I for one have no qualms sharing it."

And the cleverly childish air was enough to make her _retch_.

Misa could've sworn she heard buttons of machinery as the gears turned inside of his head. His pupils dilated, as if focusing on command like a cat.

"You look positively awful."

For a moment, she couldn't scream at him; she couldn't even mouth off to him. He was making her so livid that all she could do was hug her torso, shake vehemently, try to ignore the emotional disease that was making her blood boil, and curse her own bodily actions as fresh trickles of tears leaked out onto her dead porcelain cheeks.

"What about _you_, huh?! You look like a fucking freak twenty four hours seven days a week!"

Such a pointless insult. She knew it wouldn't even pierce his shell, if he even _had _a shell. Perhaps everything about him, all ambiguity aside, was truly on the surface. Maybe he really didn't give a damn to the greatest extent what people thought about him. How she envied that kind of conviction. A pained moan escaped her mouth from the sudden exertion and she put her arm up to her face, soaking from tears and a runny nose.

"Ryuuzaki has no right to judge Misa on her looks…I couldn't care less if you called me the Second Kira until the day I died…don't insult my looks." She mumbled from behind the supple skin of her forearm.

They were all she had, sometimes. The surface was a divine connection to the outside, and very superficial, world. Otherwise her air headedness would have probably allowed her to float away, taking a Light who somehow cared about her hand in hand.

Bemused as ever, he took a step closer to her.

And another.

Instinctively she leaned the opposite way of his approach, but her feet didn't move. Not when he faced her completely, not when his hand reached out to palm one of her shoulder blades, and not when the contact made her eyes and nose gush again. A sad day, she thought, when a pervert like him touched her like that and she didn't do a thing to stop him. And it made her angry. So unbelievably angry, that his true intentions countered what she wanted to believe about him.

He ran his hand unhesitatingly over her zit-covered back, like it didn't even faze him how disgusting it truly was. Just another recount that he wasn't like anyone else. She meant what she said about him being a freak; and she wished that he wasn't up there, touching her, being innocent and understanding and weird and different and unique. Through a crack in the curtain that was her frazzled blond hair, she glanced to the side and was met with a neutral pair of unblinking eyes, not moving a fraction even when the drafts fluttered his eyelashes.

"You are extremely sick." He reiterated.

Sick.

Yes…she supposed he was right.

Her skin sweated, her veins were coated with a stark fever, and her brain felt like it would slide right out of her head through her nostrils from being boiled to slush.

And she worshiped a cold hunk of flesh, more or less. Flesh that grew amazing touchable hair, toned muscles, and sharp amber eyes in taut young sockets. But cold. To be hugged by Light was like the very wind attempting to embrace her. Licked by sheer ice. That _was _pretty sick.

Ryuuzaki's hand was warm.

With private regret and reluctance she pulled away from the deft appendage. It was all so spooky; to know that there was nothing hidden from someone like him. He knew why she moved away, why she was up here trying to freeze her burning skin off. Why she was sick in the first place.

And he didn't reveal any of it. For the sake of natural precaution deceit or the more unlikely reason of sparing her more embarrassment. She liked to flaunt herself, to try and fool the world into thinking that she was out of his and everyone else's league in every single way, but who was she trying to kid? He was the one who was out of her league, and the fact that he was even acting like this just made her feel all the more pathetic.

Pitiable. Sorrowful.

Grossly calmed.

No, no. Tuck those thoughts away.

She coughed, her lungs heaving a wet jagged breath, and looked in the direction of the doors that lead inside. He was right. Her skin, wet with perspiration, was fire against her palms. The cold air hurt her chest, and so did that possibly poignant expression diluting his normally focused stare. That wouldn't do, not at all, to have him looking at her like that.

Without saying a word she left him on the roof, and found that she was the only one who decided to look behind her shoulder at the other.

He didn't move an inch; just stood there, legs spread crookedly as they supported his awful posture. And that hand that briefly tortured her shoulder blade lay tucked away in a jean pocket where it could never confuse someone with its cursed contact again.

She was the only one who looked back.

It made sense. Ryuuzaki wasn't the type who needed someone's undivided acknowledgement to know the existence of his radiance.


	13. The Briar Patch

**The Briar Patch**

**(Rosenrot)**

**-:-**

Rosenrot. German for 'rose red'. The tiny punctures in his fingers bled a most bountiful color, and he didn't aid his body in trying to staunch the flow. The rose bushes were so beautiful during that time of year. The briars were flourishing their sharpness as arrogantly as possible, and scarlet buds were still making themselves slowly known to the world. Opening gradually, starting out gorgeous and their bloom fanning out into a single epic ecosystem; a hideout for earwigs and spider nests, and food for the insects with the large yellow and black wings, favored among small children and adults who needed distraction from their monotony.

Rosenrot. The color of his world.

As he grew into an older child he constantly tried to blink the blood out of his eyes, to blink out the understanding. The plasmatic smoke mingled with the numbers carved a certainty into his brain, one which at first he did not want nor wished on anyone else. Humans, or at least the wonderfully corrupted ones, should not have had to live with that kind of certainty from the beginning of their existences. It was something that should have been like the rose that pricked him; gradual.

Beyond Birthday hid in the cover of the briar patch. _His _briar patch. Where the sun was like a fiery god and the ground that threatened to swallow him up had a decaying layer of cobblestones not separated from a laughable fate. The earth would have one taste of his made-up skin, one sight of his counterfeit features, and one listen of his obnoxiously practiced laugh, and spit him out like a gob of phlegm. He belonged to the physical world, where the people had the potential to be as menacing as he. The center of the world was not yet ready to burn him and his sorrowfully talented eyes. Not ready. Not ready.

Not ready to succeed in doing so.

His books lied forgotten to his side. A hand crafted bookmark with an embroidered picture of a soft eyed Ningyo held his desired page near the very end on the text stacked on the top. He had flipped through the book quite easily on his way out, hands covering the pages and absorbing the content through the prints of his fingers. Had he been given thirty more seconds, he would have been able to finish the five hundred page book. But in the west corner of the Wammy property, the abandoned and ignored thicket called for him to come hither. So he placed his bookmark to keep his page. He would finish the book when the bell rang. And when the bell rang, he would take another test. To see if he could do it. _It. _

To any other pair of eyes, red was B's favorite color. There was a bouquet of roses and peonies the shade of his eyes in obscure lighting sitting in a plastic vase in the dining room, and he buried his nose in them and stroked their petals at least a hundred times a day before they withered and died. When evening gave way to twilight and a red vein of concentrated vapor ripped across the sky, he would stare unabashedly without tearing his sight away even for a second. On Tuesdays it was apparently customary for a certain and insignificant girl, number twelve he called her, to wear a crimson velvet top and he would never hesitate to brush the back of his skeletal hand against the fabric, despite his distaste for contact with others. Whenever someone scraped their elbow or shin and the red fluid was gushing like a silent waterfall against their flesh, eyes of unnaturally trained yet concentrated focus zeroed in on the spurting, taking in the color. If a jar of jam was red, it was agonizing; he went to great lengths to not have to look at the color, for if he did look at it, he could not eat it. And he had to eat jam. No exceptions, no omissions.

B glanced at the sky. Five minutes until the bell. The biggest punctures on his hands from the thorns were on the tips of his index fingers. The rest had closed up due to his body's natural responses, but these were still open; still pulsing, still bleeding. Like chalk in a young enthusiastic child's hand, he reached up and touched his fingers to the corners of his mouth, and dragged them upward. A line of blood curved into his sallow powdered cheekbones; his skin really wasn't that pale, but it fit his true description. A beautiful smile to match the calm, yes.

"Oh how they go for miles…" He said, his voice so soft and whimsical it was anechoic.

His lips, which had joined the bodily face paint in an upturned outing, promptly went thin and pursed as he spotted the top room in the west wing. It was always dark and vacant; he deduced that a hundred ghosts huddled in there, waiting for the mentor to return and sit and have the children chortle and whisper excitedly from the other side of the door. And of course he would keep sitting out there in the patch, refusing to look at such a divine and damnable creature, because he didn't need to. Because each day he became one percent surer that he looked exactly like the mentor. Why see him. Why see him.

When _B _was him.

The mentor's numbers would probably be beautiful. Hovering upon a head that was the fundamentalist sculpture B was modeled after. Say they'd be close, he could move upwards to his rightful place after they found the mentor's hands cold dead and folded on top of a chest that no longer pulsed. Say the numbers manifested in the way that the mentor's death was on the tip of his tongue, then he'd move to his rightful place, and writhe during the nights because the mentor had left him.

It's a possibility that people see colors differently. What one were taught was green could be yellow for another. What one thought was grey could be pink for another. No pairs of eyes are the same. Few knew that better than he did.

He had actively changed what he used to see as red, into blue.

It was so much gentler, though it held a certain sadness that he did not quite care for and lacked an assertiveness that red might have offered. It caressed him instead of demonized him. It soothed his rotting nerves and his putrefying urge to fail and forget. It gave him the will, but without the shriveling chaos. Crimson didn't trickle under his skin. Azure was the truth. And just like the fact that was plain as day, blue was no copy of red. Red was no copy of blue. Red and blue were different. _Oh _so different.

And one was inferior to the other.

One cowered and one was bestowed a great suffering, but would rise to the occasion when the time came. No…it wouldn't even have to wait that long. Why couldn't it rise now? This very second? When the sky was pale pink and his hands were tinted the hue of the cursed color, in actuality it was the the color of basking lakes and untouched rivers.

Why wait.

B chuckled, and the sound was deep and rejected by his vocal chords. Called fake by his untrained heap of flesh that was called his body, but his mind knew better. _Much _better.

_Henh henh henh…_

The bell rang from inside the building. Last period of the day before he could shut his eyes and have dreams of blue and all of its variations. Without looking towards his destination, he licked his fingers covered with thick coppery salt and wiped off the smile. Its use was long since obsolete anyways. Reaching over to the closest briar bush, one side of his lips perked up and gave the flora a hopeful wide eyed gaze.

"Have no fear, B will return tomorrow. The weeks have been slow without the bush."

He withdrew his hand from the sharp bush to stand, and his bare feet gripped the crumbled stone beneath him endearingly; he told the patch he'd be back soon, after all. A prominent nose crinkled at the thought of the pot of violet pansies that decorated the nearest entry to the orphanage. Violet wasn't violet in his inverted vision. It was that gross color, the one of the numbers. No matter how everything else looked, the color of the numbers remained natural. Natural; stained, unrefined. His hands ached because he no longer stared at it, was no longer converting the dried hue from the warmth of fire to the cool of water.

He would do anything to see that color in its entirety…he really would.

Beyond left his secret patch to make his way back to the manor and took out his book to finish it, the ten seconds of reading the conclusion making him smile in an exercised expression of glee.

"Blaue blume'? Kehn kehn…!

Rosenrot. Rose red.

Blaue blume. Blue flower.

Anything for the color, he'd commit. Rosenrot had that ring to it though…shame. No worries, however. Inversion had become a loyal routine in his daily sight. Blaue would become rot, rot would become blaue.

And one would be inferior to the other.

-:-

_I know Beyond's like a mutant unrealistically early in this, but there's still humanity, if you look hard enough. Lot's of symbolism as well, a good briefing on his character would do wonders. Writing him is like playing with a venomous snake. Worms crawled into my mind and started gnawing on the walls separating my conscious and unconscious mind. Like injecting myself with cyanide. Way too incoherent for my usual taste, but...hopefully it's not too bad. _

_I just might end it on this one. Number thirteen...hm. __-retreats for now- _


	14. Red and White

**Red and White**

**-:-**

As he waited in the hospital hallway for someone to acknowledge him, L stared down at his red stained tennis shoes with splotched laces.

_They used to be white. _

It had been four hours since the broken windows. Since the gunfire. Since hiding, folded under his bed and waiting for the horrible noises to cease.

A small tight hand gripped a ridiculously large bag of saltwater taffy.

He didn't look up for the longest time, because he knew that if he looked upwards at them, they would inwardly draw back from the intensity of his stare. He didn't want more people backing away from him, to escape from him. His upbringing was bad enough. Sure, he could see the love in his mother's eyes, and occasionally in his father's, but his amazing perception could always decipher the truth through their actions, which was forced and staged. He could hear their whispers at night about him. It would begin soft. They were probably sitting down. Nervous knees tapped the oak table. Gentle tones became tense. They knew something wasn't right about their son. They didn't like his faraway stare that turned hard as black diamonds in an instant. The voices would rise in volume, and they would yell. The tight knit family he sometimes was lulled into believing he had would break apart for about an hour's time, so his parents could voice all of their frustrations about having him as their child. He could understand, he really could. And he didn't blame them.

But he still pulled the sheets tighter against his forehead. He knew everything he did was futile when they argued though. They didn't know that his breathing quickened, that his body numbed up, and that he squeezed his eyes as tight as he could so rogue tears couldn't fall.

His intelligence was beyond anyone's. No one would ever understand. And in turn, he would never truly understand those around him. Dissecting them for what they were was easy; to question the deeper meaning in their actions, thoughts, and feelings was much too unfathomable, even for him. At least…at the time.

People were so strange. Even when they're caged and cornered in a situation that they wished to just put behind them, they stay. For him, they stayed.

Sometimes he wished they didn't, though.

And he felt a pang of guilt, though he didn't quite know how to label the emotion, each time he thought about such an ungrateful whim. He knew how hard they tried to love him for who and what he was, for what he could do, and was capable of. At his young age, he was already taught to believe that his abnormal qualities were to be swept under the rug never to be seen again. At the time he agreed with his parents that such an ultimate sacrifice was well worth attaining just a few minutes of normalcy that families were supposed to have. People in white, pink, and blue overcoats and scrubs flounced to and fro with duties on their mind. They were constantly checking their watches, squeezing hand sanitizer onto their palms, and rolling stretchers carrying injured down the faultless tile of the hallway. Only a few seemed to take notice of him, a filthy child wearing dirt encrusted corduroy clothing, flecks of red on his cheeks, black hair desperately in need of a cut, and holding a bag of taffy close to his body much like an orthodox child would clutch a teddy bear to their side.

He felt something akin to a big hairy spider suck in the middle of pure white china. He half wished someone would talk to him and tell him what became of his parents and what would become of him, while the other half just wanted to drift away and evade anyone else's train of thought.

L's haywire brain had trouble remembering all of the details of that night. There was no disappointment in that, though. He could practically see the bullets flying out of their barrels and passing through the bodies of his family, even when drops of their blood had temporarily blinded his incisive eyes.

Eyes…

His mother's eyes…his father's eyes…the darkest of browns.

And so filled with fear. He knew that they were afraid, even though he so instinctively hid from the intruders who then ransacked his room quickly after the bullets were fired, but were thankfully stupid enough to not check under the bed.

L shut his eyes tightly. He didn't want the same look as theirs to write itself on his face.

"_Happy birthday, L." His mother cooed, gently placing a large plastic bag into her son's arms. _

_The boy stared at the sack in his arms, his eyes darting quickly but subtly to the brightly colored candies wrapped in wax paper inside of the bag. After a few seconds, in a soft almost supercilious voice, he asked, "What is in it?" _

_His mother smiled a sad smile. He knew she never quite got used to how her four, now five year old son was able to talk down to her. _

"_It's saltwater taffy, dear. I know how much you like sweet things." _

_Any other mother would frown at giving their child so much candy. But L rarely ate anything else. Whatever non-sugary item was placed in front of him, he merely stared at it appraisingly. _

"_You can try one if you like." She told him. _

_He nodded, untwisting the rubber band keeping the top of the sack closed and reached inside to grab one of the red colored candies. Small pale fingers undid the coiled wrapper and popped the treasure inside of his mouth. The tiniest smile of approval twitched across his lips, an action that was not missed by his mother, for she smiled in return. The temptation to widen that smile at the sight of hers was hard to resist. A tired weary woman, she might be, but when she showed emotion like that it meant that there was still something left under that bruised worn down shell. And she wore that shell like a fur coat past its prime; the mildew mothball smell with a hint of sorrow nearly always made him want to retch. _

_Instead of retching, however, he drew his poor mom up into a hug in exchange for the birthday present. She was startled that such a gesture was initiated by her very own son, but she placed a grateful hand on his back between his shoulder blades. L held his breath. Even though he didn't particularly enjoy close contact like that, at least he knew his mother would. _

"_I love you, L." She whispered as she leaned down to his level to bury her face in his hair. "I love you _so _much…"_

_It was definitely one of those times that she meant it from the bottom of her aching heart. It was obvious she was going to milk the moment for everything it was worth; having a normal child was all she ever wanted, and it took the birth of L to make her realize that. _

_He didn't quite feel the same rush of affection as she did, but he still let her hold him tightly within her arms, all while chewing the taffy, savoring the sweet flavor and the way it stuck to his teeth. _

His mother's voice was always very pretty, even when she was sad or angry. Hidden as he was before it was silenced forever, though racked with frantic helpless sobs, it was still beautiful.

"L Lawliet?"

L didn't even look at the person who had spoken to him, with their clipboard, white overcoat, thick glasses and condescending voice.

_Just let them talk…let them talk all they want. They don't know as much as I do. _

The thought held little spite; but the truth rang within his mind like bells.

Let them take pity on his appearance. They knew nothing. It wasn't their fault…they just didn't.

"Son…your mommy and daddy didn't make it. The bullets were in very important places in their bodies, and they just couldn't pull through."

He supposed he should have been thankful for such a sensitive delivery of news. A patronizing, immature, ignorant delivery of news…

"So you're saying that my parents have passed away." L replied smoothly.

"Erm…um, yes." The doctor stuttered, for it was obvious he was not expecting that kind of reaction, from a five year old no less.

Wide coal eyes looked downwards in what appeared to be grief.

"…I see."

The doctor wanted to say more. _So _much more. But already he was intimidated by this strange dirty child. L wanted to ask what would happen to him, where he would go now that he had no family. They wouldn't let him go back to his house unsupervised, not that there was a chance in hell he'd go back anyways for fear he'd see the red puddles again.

"What should I do now?" L asked.

"Er…well, I suppose I'll notify child services-"

"That won't be necessary." Said another voice. Not the doctor's. Not L's.

An elderly man with a calm genial face appeared next to the doctor, removing his as a gesture of old fashioned respect.

The doctor looked at this man whom L felt guilty and foolish for thinking he was hiding angel's wings, and gave me a skeptical look.

"And…you are?"

"I may have a place to for the boy now that his guardians are deceased. I will give you all of the details later if you wish, but for now will you let me have a word with him alone?"

The doctor seemed almost affronted, and that made L slightly annoyed. No one in the facility gave a damn about him, and frankly he was fine with that. There was no sense in the guy to try and act all noble and pretend that he did.

"Fine." He said, and swiftly turned around to walk in the opposite direction.

L's eyes were fixated on the man adjourning down the hallway, but his mind was completely focused on the elder in front of him, peering down at him and making him feel nervous. Nervous, because he actually seemed to care about his situation, despite his possible unknowing of what he had even been through the last forty-eight hours. Finally he turned his small head to look at him, and was immediately suspicious of the fact that this man gave off no kind of negative vibe. Even at a young age L was perceptive and trusted his fine tuned instincts. This man seemed to mean no harm; and after what he had endured, he unfortunately found it difficult to trust those instincts, for even greatest forms of evils can be masked to look harmless.

"Who are you?" L asked lowly, although at his age his voice was high pitched and boyish. It would have been quite comical to hear such a serious question in that kind of tenor had it not been asked with rapt precision.

"I am Quillish Wammy, but you may call me Watari."

Staring at him for a few seconds that stretched close to eternity, L looked downwards and flicked a bitten fingernail across the tied part of his bag. "That's a funny name."

Watari's bushy moustache separated slightly as the wrinkled lips underneath smiled. "Indeed it is."

The boy glanced upwards. "You're wearing some nice clothes. I'll bet they're warm; good against the rain and wind."

"Would you like some nice clothes as well?"

L's legs, clad in the dirty corduroys, scooted in closer to his body. "I guess that means you're rich."

"You could say that."

"So what would a rich man like you want with a dirty kid like me?" L asked without missing a beat. He was tired of adults…talking to him. Asking him things, trying to get him to remember. Trying his patience, which was dull and numb just like the rest of his strangled tired nerves.

"I've come to offer to take you to a place where children like you can flourish properly."

"What is that supposed to mean?" The question sounded accusatory, but deep down L was genuinely curious. It was already obvious that Watari knew more about him than he initially let on.

"Wammy's House, Winchester, England. Home and learning center for the finest orphan geniuses ever born."

"...An orphanage." L clarified softly, looking down again, feigning disengagement. It sounded wonderful. Even if the details were thrown to the wind, it still sounded wonderful. Anywhere away from that spot on the plastic white bench on the white tile floor in that big, white hallway would be considered a sanctuary in his eyes. But he couldn't let it show right away. He wanted to build up his wall of suspicion a little more by asking him just how he knew who he was and that he wasn't…normal, but the more he thought about it, the more the neurons in his prodigal mind flickered and pulsed, he started to realize that no where was worse than there. If Watari was some kind of sick person, well, at least he'd die in the same way his parents did. Since they couldn't work things out on Earth, maybe they could be a real family in the afterlife.

But his instincts tingled from Watari's vibes. He was not lying. He was not a criminal, not someone who would harm him. He was telling the truth.

The conflict between instinct and suspicion is substantial indeed.

"And why do you want me there?"

"You're a genius L. I know you belong there."

"And what if I said no?"

L's question rang, and a heavy quiet hung in the air, silencing even the bustle around them as other people were being admitted.

"What alternative would you suggest, L?" Watari asked simply.

Raising a thin almost imaginary eyebrow, L shrugged. "Then, Watari, take me away."

In an action that surprised even himself, he gently hopped off his bench and took the man's hand; characterized and wrinkled. The moustache curled again as Watari's bright blue eyes sparkled. L looked more serious than ever, in contrast.

"Perhaps one day you'll tell me what happened, L?" Watari asked as they began to walk down the hallway in search of an exit.

"They're in bags. They're sleeping peacefully right now, all in the black plastic." L said detachedly. "After mom gave me my birthday present, it was their fault my shoes became so stained."

He sounded so out of breath, so broken. Watari tightened his grip on the tiny hand within his grasp. The question was a test to see how well he remembered the event, and the boy's answer was proof that L was not ready to come to terms with it.

"I see."

L felt the plastic against his other hand, and suddenly remembered. He let go of Watari's hand and opened his bag, pulling out a bright red piece of taffy, much like the dress his mother used to wear during Christmas Eve as she sadly watched her son open his presents. Desperately hoping that he'd like them…which she knew he wouldn't, because he was so different. So, _so _different.

Red like the sirens and lights, with hints of blue and yellow flashing outside of the door of his house and making it look like the devil lived there.

He untwisted the sides of it and threw the wax paper onto the floor, littering the very place in which he became an orphan. The candy flew into his mouth, sticking, staining, and rotting every molar it came into contact with. The sugar made his head spin, but in the good way. He decided he loved that feeling, especially now.

A content, grateful smile on his lips for the small escapist comfort, he reached back for Watari's hand, and held it tightly within his the entire journey from the hospital to the manor, _Wammy's House_, as Watari put it. With its pretty bricks, pale red, and pretty hallways...painted old fashioned white.


	15. Eternity

**Eternity**

**-:-**

Most people who were in Light Yagami's position went to a place of pure nothingness. Light had seen it before. In his perspective, it was a vast desert with failure hanging intoxicatingly in the air. The desert held no beauty. There were no rolling dunes, and instead of being tan or russet, the sand was black and scorching. The second he stepped into his eternity, he fell to his knees and cursed everything. He gnashed his teeth together, squeezed his eyes closed, gnawed at the corners of his lips until they tore and stung but did not bleed. He threw himself head first into the black sand prison with his eyes wide open, letting the grains scratch his corneas. His skull felt like it was about to implode on itself; so many thoughts. So many horrific deranged thoughts. It was too much for him. It was too much for this _place_. His eternity melted around him, and soon he was hurtling towards the Earth, his spherical home that he tried his hardest to save, through a liquefying tunnel of space and time.

Light's body hit the piece of sidewalk right in front of his house. There was no pain, only a jarring force that could have rattled the very form of God. The actual God. The God who had not failed in colonizing the world.

He stood up. Everything looked the same, but his trained gaze saw the age in the place. His house held the same empty feeling it did before he picked up that black notebook. But he felt compelled to go inside anyways.

How long had he been gone?

The fact that he had no shadow did not go unmissed. Dead, faraway, and on another plane, Light's mind was still sharp as ever. When he came to the doorstep, he reached for the knob, and he was unsurprised but spiteful that his hand went right through the tarnished metal. Light narrowed his eyes. With this, he could always just walk right through it. To acknowledge that he was just a wisp of wind or a trick of the light, however, was quite unsavory. He thought back to his eternity, and how the harder he thought, the more intense his psychotic emotions churned, the place ceased to exist and he was back home. Albeit still a spirit…he was back because of his thoughts. Was his hysterical breakdown in the desert powerful enough to send him back to the physical realm?

Still a transparent effigy of what his looks during life used to sport, he stood on the doorstep for a whole five minutes wondering if he should once again try to focus his thoughts, to try and make some use of his inner rage so his hand could actually grip the door knob. A tricky and even absurd thing to attempt, but no one was there to judge him anymore. His fate was already sealed.

Minutes passed, and he began to grow bored of staring at the metal knob. He was about to just walk through the walls and say to hell with such a pointless and stupid endeavor, but as he took a step he merely bounced off of the hard painted bricks. A puff of air escaped his nostrils as he fumed. Being a spirit was difficult, confusing, emotional, and moronic. Four things that he hated vehemently.

With the surge of rage in his empty veins, he caught onto the realization fast and touched the doorknob, gripping it, and letting himself quickly into the house. Moving as a ghost was a lot harder than he initially thought. One would assume having no cells, atoms or other building blocks in their body would make them more lightweight.

Calmly pleased with his latest stroke of genius, no matter how many times they struck him each day; Light froze as he heard the familiar voice of the woman who had raised him. Or at least done her best to.

"Hello? Is someone there?" Sachiko's voice called from the kitchen.

For a brief moment it was like he and Dad had never passed away. His mother sounded years younger for that single inquiry. Her next string of words revealed a little more of her real state; one that was a little more mutilated and scarred.

"Light? Soichiro…?"

There was a pang of something in the airy copy of his heart. Her mind was still playing tricks on her…telling her that everything that happened was just a dream; sweaty and filled with nightmarish events.

Implying that her son and husband were still coming home later that night for dinner.

Then he saw her, and stared at his mother in awe and holding his breath if he had any. Of course she didn't see him, but for an instant Light wondered if she had. Doleful, pathetically sad eyes looked at the closed door with heartbreaking disappointment as she discovered that her insanity of losing two members of the family she worked so hard to serve once again had fooled her. Light was never somebody who liked to display affection, even to his family, but his poor mother looked so run down and beaten that he wanted to hug her. But he didn't want to waste the effort. He knew angry thoughts would help him touch things in the physical world; he didn't feel like testing if sad thoughts would. Besides, he didn't like to dwell on sorrow anymore. Not when he had almost drowned in his own mind before he became Kira.

He took a few steps, and another few. Soon he was wandering around his old house, knowing his ethereal presence was just amplifying the loneliness of the place. He found himself upstairs, looking at his own room, spotless and put away (compliments to his quietly obsessive mother), and his parents room, the bed neatly made and only had to support one person at night. And finally, Sayu's room. Eventually, the angry thoughts gave way to curiosity and observation, so he walked through the walls rather than opening the doors. It wasn't as messy as it used to be when she was younger. Back in the day, it would get so dirty that he would dread going anywhere near it, clean and cut as he was. Now, a few things were strewn across the floor, but other than that, it was just as clean as his. He shouldn't have thought it strange; Sayu was nearly an adult now, able to care for her belongings a little better than when she was a teenager. He was quite able to pick up the vacant vibes in all other areas of the house, but Sayu's room…felt especially oppressive.

He couldn't quite put his finger on it…

What exactly _was _that vibe?

Turning his head towards the closed door, he heard the front entrance gently open and close. Mom's soft voice, Sayu's soft voice, both of their ridiculously soft, careful, voices, speaking to each other like they were afraid to break each other's weary bodies. Footsteps up the stairs, also careful. And practiced a thousand, no, a _million _times. Once again, Light held his imaginary breath when Sayu opened the door of her room. He felt like he hadn't seen her face in ages. And though still young and admittedly beautiful, a product like him of their mother's and father's good genes, she looked so incredibly old. Eyes the same as her mother's, Sayu set down her things and began to change out of her work uniform she was required to wear down at whatever restaurant she served at. Light knew he should have averted his eyes, but he didn't. His sister undressed in front of him, but he was paying attention to everything but her bare skin. Everything she did, every tense of a muscle, every heavy sigh, every brush of fabric was so…routine. He remembered a Sayu who laughed a lot, joked a lot, smiled and grinned and smirked a lot.

Mirthful…that was the word.

To call her that now was a laughable idea. To him, Sayu looked like what he was; a sallow pathetic shell of what she used to be. Her stunning looks didn't hide her pain or anguish that meandered slowly in her eyes.

His sister, clad in just a bra and panties, crawled into bed and disconnected all contact with the outside world. Closing her eyes, it seemed she was hoping to suffocate underneath layers and layers of dreams cooked up by her inwardly frantic subconscious to lessen the hurt of her losses.

Light narrowed his eyes. Already his excessive intellect was deducing what was going on and what that vibe was, but he didn't have the patience, nor heart to acknowledge it quite yet. One thing he would relearn being dead, however, was exactly that: patience. Time would no longer move for him.

Grief, he told himself. That's what she's feeling. A simple case of grief.

He moved himself to the corner of the room, and proceeded to watch his sister sleep without blinking.

-:-

Months passed. Another year. The passage of time could only be felt by the changing winds, falling leaves, and the icy puffs of air escaping the blue tinted lips of the living.

Occasionally Light felt the familiar seething feelings erupt with him, allowing his see-through form to touch something solid. A slammed door. A broken window. Busted plumbing. Sachiko could not understand why her house was suddenly falling apart by the seams when she made sure to keep it in tip-top shape. Light enjoyed these little outbursts while he could, but as time went on, they began to fade as well. Much like the very life force of what was left of his family. His haunting of his home calmed down considerably since the cosmos decided to return his spirit to his doorstep, and now the only signs of his presence were soft but frigid gusts of air.

His mother was now a robot with a forged smile, always wiping her knives on her apron and preparing ridiculously big meals that she and Sayu would never in their wildest dreams finish by themselves. It came to the point where his mother was constantly cooking. The house was always warm from the busy oven and microwave, and he knew that if he could still smell, aromas of the culinary kind would fill his nostrils.

Sayu wasn't even trying to pretend anymore. Her face remained hard and stony, like it had forgotten how to smile at all, and only remembered how to frown and crease like she was about to cry. At her age, Light was already a junior in college, but it was obvious that she lacked the drive and the mental state to handle school.

It made his heart ache. Guiltily he finally admitted this to himself; although it didn't beat any longer, it was still there. And he felt it now more than he ever did in life.

The bouts of ghostly anger ceased, and Light knew that he would have to accept making his presence known in other more benign ways. But he didn't know how. The days went by and the urge to be able to communicate in some way to his family grew stronger. He liked to think that he had forever to find new techniques, and he certainly did. However Sachiko and Sayu would eventually wither and die. And it definitely wasn't certain that they would acquire the same fate as he.

Guilt and regret was not something he often felt when he was alive, and suddenly it was now creeping up on him like all of it in the world was secretly reserved for him. He truly wanted to cleanse the world of the wicked, to wash the planet's soil free of all the blood that had seeped into it. And he still did. But as he watched his family die the slowest of deaths, death by sorrow and grief, he finally felt a burden on his vaporous shoulders. Because he used the Death Note, because he had become Kira, his family was now in shambles.

It sickened him. Sometimes he wished he could just vomit, get rid of the grating feeling in the pit of his stomach. The more statue-esque his mother and sister became, the more helpless and racked with remorse he became in turn.

Light finally realized what was so wonderful about life. People walk their paths feeling powerless and weak their entire lives, but the truth was they had the capability to do something about it. They had the ability to change the world if they could. For him, it was finding a deadly notebook, for others it might be…anything. Nobody knew that in life. They figured they were stuck in neutral forever, until they exhaled their last breath.

It wasn't a situation of him not realizing his helplessness now. He truly _was _helpless. As a ghost, there was virtually nothing he could do to change the world. A privilege so many had and didn't cherish, which now he coveted.

He was no longer an angry ghost. Now, he was overflowing with unhappiness.

The house grew colder.

Light now knew what the vibe that latched itself onto Sayu's body was. It was the exact same kind of depression that had struck him when he was a teenager. Seventeen, bleak, and sinfully deceiving to others about his inner struggle to get out of bed in the morning. All who saw him just thought he was a handsome genius from a stable family, assured to throw off grading curve in every class he went to. Each person he met thoroughly missed the pitifully dead look in his dark copper eyes. They knew nothing of what went on beneath the surface; the very composed and calculated surface. A sea, black like oil, bound him to a sadness that he did not understand nor could escape from. So many times had he wished he could just…ignore the suffering of the world like everyone else. Even those stuck in amidst the bloody chaos tried their hardest to ignore…and succeeded in going about their daily lives until they were ended by a raid or a bombing, genocide or religious war. And yet there he was, living comfortably in a warm house with both of his parents and a sister who had still been kept from harassment and rape…

Even then, he was still so malcontent.

That same despondent mood clung to Sayu like a leech, and was sucking the energy straight out of her body through a straw. After a while Light found it difficult to merely look at her. She was following in his footsteps, on the way to becoming a crude imitation of the exuberant girl she once was, except there would be no Death Note or miraculous object of supernatural properties to save her from the void.

He felt guilt for what he put his family through, but in no way did he feel guilt for killing off those criminals. Even in death, finding the note was the best thing that ever happened to him. It didn't matter that it bestowed on him a premature demise. He was able to grow out of that depression, slip into a sweet, sweet horrific madness, and change the world so that even in the most war-torn parts of the world, children would no longer be burying their parents and vice versa. It was true he would've felt a little better about it had it didn't include the factor of fear; but the results, the _results. _'Means to an end', he wanted to shout at L, to Near, to all those stupid people who failed to understand anything. For geniuses, such a simple concept of _peace _couldn't get through their thick skulls.

Light, a wraith whose presence had once again become something of a normal element in the Yagami household, stood in his now designated spot when night fell; the corner of Sayu's room. His eyes glowed crimson, much like they used to when a glint of evil brilliance hit him like a bolt of jagged delectable lightning, but this was certainly not the case anymore. Like a ghost possessed, despite that he had no body to house the intrusion, he walked to the edge of his sister's bed, knowing that if he touched her porcelain cheek, his hand would freeze her blood, or if he ran his fingers through her hair, the strands would sink through his dematerialized form like the softest sand. The question as to why he even felt the need to console Sayu brewed in the back of his mind, but he quelled the useless speculations for once, and stared down at the girl, harnessing the feeling of regret that he still felt quite new to.

For the first time since he started watching her sleep, she suddenly stirred. Light froze, eyes abandoning their constant moroseness for a moment and widening. Sayu whimpered, rubbed her legs together anxiously, and desperately clutched her pillow to her nearly bare form. Slender brows pursed together in concern, and he wondered what the hell she was dreaming about to make her react in such a way, especially when she had become a glass statue whether she was awake or sleeping. Nothing roused her anymore; what in sleep was making her…

…Cry?

She was crying?

Light's mouth ran dry as a slender liquid crystal seeped from one of her eyes, ran over the bridge of her nose, and trapped itself in the valley of her other. And they just continued to come, without a care in the world, because as far as she was concerned it was the only time when the world _wasn't _watching her, so she could let loose, if only this once.

"Dad…Daddy…"

He had no stomach, but his abdomen ached with ghost pain and he wished he had something to throw up. Something other than the emptiness now filling up with flagrant sorrow for his sister's tribulations. Part of him wished to flee, not caring how hard it actually was to move as a ghost since his ties here were so regrettably strong. So maybe he couldn't run away. But maybe he should have just gone back into the corner, to watch her and do nothing for the rest of their lives…

"…_Light_…"

Like a child about to fall to their knees and weep, Light's hands slowly came up and gripped his brittle hair from the sheer lunacy of the way she said his name. He couldn't handle this emotion, _guilt_, he thought with more spite than he ever had even during his hateful life. It made him want to shrivel up and disappear forever. Maybe he _did _belong in the nothingness that was supposedly meant for him…maybe he _did _need to be sent to purgatory. Maybe this arrangement, which at first seemed fortunate, was actually the most appropriate hell for him; a place in which he could see, from the view of his powerless form, the havoc that he unknowingly wrought instead of vanquishing like he had wanted.

His stubborn psychosis that was still with him in death refused to let him regret killing the common criminals; he was still sore about his failure of molding a brilliant utopia. But there was no utopia for Sayu…not even in her dreams. It was probably no different for his mother, but for the moment he stood there, frozen in time, at the same time watching it wither away in the form of tears and the trembling bare white shoulders of his sibling.

Sayu.

_Sayu. _

_SAYU!_

"Sayu…"

Startled by the sound that came from his mouth, he clamped a hand over his lips. Had he really just said that…had that really come out of his throat? Did he truly…_speak_? Light had never been able to use his vocal chords before; after a while it seemed logical to assume that he didn't have them anymore. But her name trickled out of his mouth like it would have five years ago. Tentative, gentle…perhaps even a little exasperated. The voice of a true older brother.

"L-Light…?" She replied softly, as if replying to him.

He should have gone back to the corner.

Before he could concede to anything else, he willed his voice to sound once more. Dreams were in another dominion completely; had he been able to reach her all this time? Sayu may have been sinking within herself, but she wasn't as far gone as his mother. Talking to the older woman while she slept seemed almost useless. It was probably his heartlessness talking, but Mom had less of a life to live than her daughter did. It wasn't worth it.

With much effort in moving his ethereal body, he leaned down next to her sleeping face. "Can you hear me?" Light asked. His voice was so frozen…he could have sworn that it was the culprit for suddenly frosting the tips of her hair. But even as the temperature dropped considerably in the room, Sayu did not wake; only stirred.

"Where'd you go, Light?" She whispered desperately. Her throat was clogged with sobs.

"Nowhere. I'm right here." Light assured firmly in her ear.

She stopped forming whole sentences for a few moments, her lips moving and saying things that he couldn't make out.

"I'm…I'm so cold."

"You're cold?" He repeated dumbly, but he was too frighteningly fascinated with his sister's mumbled exchange to care about how stupid he was sounding.

"Yeah…I don't want to be cold…"

Never had he felt bound to act this way. He looked at Sayu, pathetic damaged Sayu, and once again felt the pain of remorse. Disgusting…just so disgusting. But he did nothing to stem the flow of anguish. Narrowing his eyes, he spied the ample amount of space in her bed, feeling a surge of ugly discretion at what he was thinking about doing. Taking a deep breath…or at least the chest movement of one, he concentrated hard and went to grab her thin comforter. It was possible that he could just fall right through her mattress and the floorboard if he wasn't careful, but he did what he did best and took a chance. He gripped the blanket and slipped inside of the bed next to her. Miraculously his body stayed on top of the mattress, and suddenly he found himself physically closer to Sayu than he ever remembered being. Her face was so near; he could see every crease of her pretty weary face, every dried tear rivulet in the creases on both sides of her nose.

"Still cold?" He asked.

Her lips parted without saying anything, like the Dream Sayu was considering her answer.

"…A little."

Overcome, he reached over and touched her shoulder, slightly amazed that he could actually feel her hair standing on end from being chilled.

"I'm sorry. I'm no help."

Dream Sayu shrugged. She still looked sad.

"I can't go on without you." She said.

"Don't say things like that, Sayu. Of course you can."

"But look at me…I'm…fading."

Light said nothing to that. It was the truth, after all. She _was _fading; in fact she was so far gone that he was unsure whether she would ever recover. But he had to tell her that she would. His pride reared its head as he thought that his word should still mean a lot to his younger sibling, regardless of whether he was alive or dead.

"You and Dad…gone…mom…I don't…" Her haunted emotional tone stirred his shapeless insides.

"And soon I'll be gone too…I'm hopeless."

"No…" Light said softly at first and shaking his head.

"I'm…helpless."

"_No._" He repeated, a little more forceful this time. His hazy grip on her shoulder tightened; she must have felt it, because she flinched.

"Don't ever, _ever _feel helpless. You're not, no matter what you go through." Light whispered harshly. More tears leaked out from Sayu's ducts. It was baffling how she was still asleep, even as she conversed with her dead brother.

"Sayu…" He said, and he scooted closer to her, making sure that he stayed on the mattress. Dream Sayu was probably staring at him intently, with those big brown watery eyes of hers.

"Don't…" Closer. "…Ever…" Their bodies were touching. "…Feel helpless."

He enveloped her in his arms made of dry mist. It might have been his imagination, but he almost thought he felt the wetness from her tears on his shoulder.

"It's obvious you're not ready to let it go…but you have to, eventually."

Sayu was not a genius. She was not abnormal. She was not extraordinary or unusual.

But she was his sister, and she deserved happiness. Living in her cavity of sorrow would make it so she could never achieve that. She needed an outlet; reassurance that her world had not fallen apart just yet. That the _entire _world had not fallen apart just yet. Even if it wasn't true, she needed anything. Something that wasn't destructive…yet dramatic. Something that would pull her out from the black quicksand before she was swallowed up forever...

"Don't…don't…" He stuttered.

Now he was just as incoherent as she was…and he hated being incoherent. Don't what? Don't _what_?

He took another fake breath.

"Don't be like me."

A fresh swell of tears gushed from Sayu's eyes, and she finally stopped moving, stopped talking. She asked no more questions about where he went or why he left, nothing more about how she could no longer live without his existence. He wanted her to find something to help her out of the same hole he fell into when he was seventeen. Something that affected her, and no one else. Even then, he felt no regret for the lives he had taken. But without hurting a hair on Sayu's head, he had ruined her life.

The early hours of the morning approached, and he still held her. The tears had ceased. The sting still remained in her chest, and his as well, but the tears had ceased. He thought about getting out of the bed and moving back into the corner, but his body denied satisfying the thought.

The afterlife was strange indeed. Holding his sister in her defacement, he wondered if this was the eternity that the notebook had foretold. It certainly felt like eternity, holding his sister like that for a few hours.

And yet…the time passed peacefully for a little bit.

Yes, this was eternity. Certainly not the nothingness that was prophesied.

**-:-**

_Well this took a ridiculous amount of time to produce, and problems with my internet didn't help._

_This is probably going to be my last Death Note oneshot for a long time. I thank those of you who stuck around. _

_If anyone chooses to review, I would like something specific in your comments, if it's not too much to ask. I'd like to know if there has been any growth from the earlier chapters to the later ones. I just want to know from the reader's standpoint if I'm improving. _

_Keep in touch. I'm always in the mood for a chat. :3_


End file.
